Breathing Would Be Nice

Yesterday, Kat and I returned to the doctor's office to have her TB test read (it's negative). As we were leaving, we ran into Marty, who is not only our doctor (well, our PA), but has become a dear friend. Marty is like a sister, a mother and a best friend all wrapped in a white lab coat.

She took one look at me and asked if I'm feeling OK. I now realize that the days, weeks and months of wheezing, sneezing, and itchy, watery eyes have been taking a toll on my otherwise ravishing good looks (pffffft!). "Eh, not really," I admitted. "But it's just these dang allergies."

"'Not really, like how not-really?'" she asked.

"Like 'can't-breathe not-really," I said. "Like scratching-my-face-off not-really. Like my-lungs-kinda-hurt not-really."

"I want you back here tomorrow," Marty demanded. "Really, really -- I'm serious." Then she turned to the appointment nurse. "Make her an appointment for tomorrow; I'll squeeze her in," she said.

"Fine! Be that way," I teased. But I knew she meant it.

I went back today. Marty listened to my chest, probed in my nose and down my throat, and poked around my sinuses. "M'dear, you're a mess," she declared. "Your sinuses are completely swollen, you're wheezing, and your airway is about this tiny," she said, wrapping her thumb around her curled forefinger to make a pea-sized opening. "How long has this been going on?"

It was a rhetorical question, since looking at my chart revealed that I'd been in twice during the past year with the same symptoms. Each time, she'd prescribed Prednisone, and antibiotic and an inhaler -- which she did again today. But this time she insisted that I see an allergist, pronto.

I've never had allergies or asthma before, so I figured that I was just going through something temporary. Yeah, temporary for a full year. Sheer denial, I know. But even if I have allergies and asthma it's no big deal, right?

Wrong.

Marty's insistence that prolonged compromised respiratory function can significantly shorten one's life jolted me out of my la-dee-da, I'll-just-live-with-it attitude, and I promised her that I'll make an appointment with the allergist. And I will.

Either that or an appointment with a Realtor and a reservation on an airplane. None of this bothered me in Germany... or, as Tom reminded me, in Hawaii.