I Fought The Pollen and the Pollen Won

Since yesterday afternoon, my allergies have been out of control. My nose has been stuffed up and runny at the same time. My eyes have been itching and watering. It's been fun.

Only in the last hour has the medication and saline nasal spray started to have any noticeable effect. I now have the option to breathe through something other than my mouth and I can sit up without needing to have a tissue box within arm's reach.

I blame the whole thing on the pollen I was exposed to yesterday. I was in Carmel to support M and her teammates who were running a relay in the Big Sur Marathon. I spent a good deal of the morning in Marathon Village, which was really just a field of recently cut weeds, on the edge of the Crossroads Shopping Village.

I must have inhaled a nice quantity of dust and pollen as I visited the various booths and tents. I thought my regular allergy medicine would be enough to keep my allergies in check, but I was wrong.

By the time the team reunited just around noon, I was starting to feel the first symptoms (itchy eyes). The runny nose kicked in while we ate lunch at Chipotle in Monterey's Del Monte Center. By the time we were on the road, I had full blown symptoms and all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the couch, which I did as soon as I got home.

I was still feeling pretty bad this morning, but I took the day off to rest and it seems to be helping. I'm hoping hot tea, hot soup, and another good night of sleep will have me back on my feet and at a hundred percent tomorrow.