Salutations all!
And yes you read the title right... I said Mother.Nature.Tried.To.Kill.Me. and here's the story of what happened..
So The Boo & I headed on up to Nashville at the last minute for Independence Day to see some fireworks and hang with the parents. Even though I had lived there for years, I never really bothered to go downtown and to do the tourist thing. Nashville is the Country Music capital and since country music isn't my cup o'tea, I never saw a need to go down on Broadway and look at cowboy boots, country music record stores (Yes! record stores), and country music tourist trap places. However, Nashville is growing by leaps an bounds so I was excited to see what was going on. That and well The Boo hadn't experienced the essence of the city yet and it was the perfect time to do some exploring. On our way back from sightseeing and shopping we decided to ride with the windows down and let the wind blow in our hair..
Fun was had by all, but let me just say that riding with the windows down was a grave GRAVE mistake!
My eyes started watering while the air was whipping all around us. This really wasn't all that unusual, because it has happened before and I just figured something was in my eyes. Except this time my eyes were watering violently! I'm talking about if you had been in the car beside us, it would've looked like I was crying while driving. (which by the way is no easy feat) So we roll up the windows and all is well. No more tears. A little later on, I started to notice that I was getting a stuffy nose. No problem though.. Again, this was nothing unusual, but then instead of going away like it normally did, it turned into supreme stuffiness!!
What is supreme stuffiness, you ask? Well I'm sure you've experienced it at one time or another.. It's where your nose and face are so full of mucus that you feel like your head and face are going to burst wide open if you don't get some relief like, right.now. So I was thinking, 'Oh Crap!! I have a summer cold!'. I'm sure you know as well as I do that regular colds are bad, but summer colds are The Worst...
When I have a cold, I like to stock up on medicines, throat thingys to make the scratchiness/soreness go away, vitamin C pills, and let's not forget the stockpile of Kleenex that you can never have enough of. I also cocoon myself on the couch and prop myself up on pillows so that I can sleep sitting up. This is so as not to suffocate in the middle of the night from drainage & lack of air getting through my very blocked nasal passages. I'd hate for my obituary to read that I died from strangulation by mucus.
So I'm medicating like normal, but instead of getting better I'm just getting worse and I feel like I'm gonna die! My nose at this point feels like someone's whole fist is there and it refuses to move. Let's not even talk about how the one working nostril is burning when I breathe in from being overloaded with smells.
Although I didn't want to, I went to my local Urgent Care and saw the medical person and was informed that I don't have a cold, nor was I dying, but was simply suffering from allergies. Apparently whatever has been blooming this Spring/Summer season is being really aggressive on people. I was relived and surprised at the same time that it was allergies, since I hadn't suffered from them since I was a child. So they sent me on my way with a prescription for nasal spray and that combined with allergy meds got me back to 100% after about three days.
I'm very glad to be back in the land of the living. :)
Do you have allergies you have to deal with too? I'll be very leery of riding with the windows down next season. As for now, I will be staying doped up in an effort not to feel like death warmed over ever again!
Ciao!
