About this time every year, we are the recipients of Texas’s No. 1 export.
Mountain cedar pollen.
At least, that’s what the Texans call it.
According to our friend, Google, it is actually juniper pollen, mislabeled with possible felonious intent and sent north in volume every spring.
Each and every year about this time, I get a burning in my nose and a runny this and a dripping that. I’ll sneeze like a bird dog and spend a few weeks in a Benadryl fog until the air clears.
I don’t need to look at an allergy report to tell that the cedar pollen is high.
Perhaps you share this allergy with me.
I have mentioned before that I dwelled among the Texans back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and became acutely allergic to mountain cedar - I mean juniper. You see how branding works? - pollen while I was there.
One day I did an allergy test which involved putting dots of allergens on my skin and pricking them so they would soak in.
My skin flinched when it saw the cedar - juniper! - coming and tried to hide, but to no avail.
The reaction was as large as the nurse could measure with her little protractor, so they added juniper to the shots I took for several years.
It was quite a cocktail that mitigated my allergies to dust, mold, grass pollen and the allergen formerly known as mountain cedar.
About this time last year, the juniper/cedar pollen rolled in and I developed bad symptoms that turned into a month-long illness that turned into a respiratory issue requiring two rounds of steroids and associated drugs.
So, late last week I felt the annual symptoms coming on and said to myself: “Not this year.”
“Then you better go see the doctor soon,” I replied.
And so I did. The very next day, in fact, which was Sunday.
They gave me a shot of steroids with a warning that it could cause a burst of energy, handed me a prescription for a Z-pack, patted me on the shoulder and sent me on my way with assurances that I was in no way contagious.
A long nap later, I woke up thinking that I felt better already and noticing that I did have what these days passes for an extra bounce in my step.
I like it.