kris·tin·ol·o·gy - Kristin Petersen's Blog

Don’t worry… I wasn’t the one sleep driving.  But someone I was sharing the road with on my way to work this morning was!

He was a big guy, driving a big white van.  I could see from the time this guy was way ahead of me that he was all over the road.  I figured he was just doing something else and not paying much attention because he was driving worse than a drunk driver.  It wasn’t until I caught up and got beside him that I realized his eyes were closed!

Traffic is always very slow and bumper to bumper on the toll road in the morning.  He would come to a complete stop while the traffic was getting way ahead of him.  Then he would start to drive off the road and stop again when he started to run over the bumps outside the lane.  Luckily for him, and the other drivers, he kept stopping when he fell asleep (instead of crashing).  Then he would realize it, jump, and act awake for twenty seconds before it happened all over again.

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one realizing what was going on.  Everyone was giving him plenty of space in all directions.  I sure wasn’t going to get in front of him!  The entertainment/worry was definitely keeping me more alert.  I’m usually on autopilot on my way to work.  Sometimes I don’t even remember getting there… scary, I know.  Unfortunately, my exit came so I don’t know what happened to him.  I sure hope he made it to where he was going.

So far (fingers crossed) I am actually having a good allergy day!!  My breathing yesterday afternoon was bad, but so far no major problems today.  There goes my workplace theory, maybe?

I feel like my recent allergy struggles have offered me just a little perspective of what all of my CFer friends go through on a daily basis.  I’ve dealt with extra doctor visits, blocked sinuses, a lot of new medications, restricted breathing, and being out of breath when I try to do something.  I’m not claiming to know what it would be like to have CF, but this is the first time I’ve experienced ongoing health issues.  My coughing is almost gone and sinuses have been clear the last couple of days.  But now Jesse has caught whatever bacteria I had, and it’s taking him a bit longer to recover.  He just smiled when I told him how awful it would be if I had to stay on both of my new prescriptions forever.

The next step in my allergy plan is to go for allergy testing on September 15th.  The worst part is that I can’t have any allergy medicines for a whole week before the testing.  While I understand the idea behind not wanting any antihistamines to interfere with the test results, I don’t think it is entirely necessary.  If my reactions are this bad with the medicines, I don’t want to imagine what a week will be like with NOTHING!

After the testing I will most likely begin allergy shots.  At a weekly visit to the doctor’s office, I will receive larger and larger doses of whatever I’m allergic to until I become immune.  This seems like a sucky solution, but it is really my only option at this point.  The allergy doctor said that each allergy medicine I take will eventually stop helping as my body gets used to having it, which is true for the last three medicines I was on.  So it will only be a matter of time before my current choices no longer help.