I’ve never been good at being deathly ill. When my youngest was two I got pneumonia. His brother and sister went off to school and his dad went to work and there we were, me coughing up a lung every couple of minutes and him sweetly toddling around leaving little poop trails from his loosely fitting diapers and patting my forehead to make sure I was ok.
My best friend called to ask if I wanted her to take him for the day. “Oh no (cough cough) we’re fine (cough) don’t (gag) worry (cough gag) about it (cough gag choke).”
She took him. He had a great day. We all survived.
Fast forward a million years.
I have now been married forever. And I have learned that no matter how sick I am, my husband will upstage me. If I get a cold, he gets COVID. If I get COVID he gets pneumonia. And if I even think about getting pneumonia…
Well forget it. Have you heard of an endarterectomy? How about two of them? (Google it) Plus a stroke? And a five way bipass? And prostrate this and TURP that and catheters and we are not even getting to the bad stuff and I am a terrible person for keeping score.
So anyway, I’m sure you are wondering how I became allergic to my glasses.
Recently I had a mammogram. They said they saw a small something. It turned out to be a small cancer. No big deal. Lumpectomy, should be fine, check with your local radiologist for follow up.
Ok so local radiologist enthusiastically recommended a short 5 day course of radiation. Short! Five days! High dose but so short! Nothing to it! Short!
After the first couple of sessions my allergies started acting up. Not unusual, just sneezing and itchy eyes. By the end of the treatments I was sneezing constantly, my nose was running non stop, and my eyes were so irritated I couldn’t stand it. It occurred to me that this felt like a body-wide autoimmune issue. But surely not. I must be allergic to these new glasses! I had switched from plastic frames to metal. Back to the old ones. Boom. Problem solved.
Except here I am 8 weeks later with widespread joint pain. My left ankle is swollen. My shoulders are arthritic. And my knees wake me up at night with pain and stiffness. My glasses, on the other hand, seem to be fine.
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