Stuff

So I went to the allergist last week. Besides informing me that the allergist I saw as a teenager probably wasn’t board certified, he took my reaction to eating mangoes a little more seriously than I did. As a result, I am the new owner of an epi pen. O happy day. I just have a hard time treating this particular allergy with respect. I mean, how often do you encounter mangoes in the course of your daily life, much less accidentally ingest them? Granted, I got a small piece of one in my Jamba juice a few months ago, and it would be unpleasant to discover, as I’m doing 70 on the highway on my way to work, that my reaction had progressed from numb and swollen lips to, say, life-threatening throat swelling. So I’m carrying the damn pen. How I’m going to find it in my purse when I need it, when I can’t even locate my ringing, vibrating phone before it switches to voice mail, I dunno.

This morning I got to go back and have the skin testing done again. Not much has changed since I was thirteen. I’m still allergic to everything on the panel. At least this time I got to read a book while getting pricked. The doctor’s parting advice? “Stay away from cats.” This man, he is a GENIUS! Why didn’t I think of that?!

Oh, wait. I believe the first words out of my mouth, during our initial consultation, were, “I’m horribly allergic to cats.”

He still doesn’t know why my ear’s been hurting on and off since August, so tomorrow I get to see the ear/nose/throat dude. Yippee.

I’ve realized that the clinic has the same aura as Wal-Mart: the pervasive sense of collective misery. The allergist’s nurse is the only person in the building who seems happy to be there; the rest remind me of the drones trudging into work at the beginning of Joe vs. the Volcano. A highly underrated film which I recommend wholeheartedly….

… where was I?

… eh, enough boring medical detail.

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I’m absolutely loving Heroes, but I keep getting sidetracked by little things, like: what is Mohinder’s immigration status? And where does he get his terrible shirts?

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Chapter 2 of Fledgling is up.