It seems like every year, my allergies get worse. They come on in mid-March, knock me on my ass for about a month, and then leave during the middle of April. This year is no different — except they came on earlier and stronger than ever before.

I first noticed problems just before we left for Belize. Because of Oregon’s very mild winter, certain trees and flowers were beginning to blossom just after Valentine’s Day. I had some sneezing and sniffing, but then we left for a tropical climate and things were fine.

It was when we returned from our trip, however, that my troubles began. Almost immediately my eyes began to burn, my throat itched, my sinuses clogged, and I was floored by sneezing fits. The first week of March was awful.

During the second week of March, I had a bit of a respite. Whether from the Zyrtec or from the rain, my allergies took a rest. But the third week was worst of all. Last Tuesday, I was basically non-functional. I scratched out a quick post for Get Rich Slowly, but then I retreated into the bathtub for five or six hours, where I found some measure of relief.

My days were miserable, but my nights were worse. Because I couldn’t seem to find any medication that would alleviate my symptoms, sleeping became nearly impossible. On a normal night, my sleep chart looks like this:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

As you can see, I normally get into bed at about 10pm, fall asleep within half an hour, and sleep the whole night through. When Kris gets up at 5:30, I’m not really aware of it, but my sleep pattern is disrupted and I toss and turn until I finally wake up at around 6:30am.

That’s normal.

Here’s what my sleep has been like lately:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

This is a total mess. First of all, I’m napping during the day because I’m so tired from not getting sleep the night before. Then I’m trying to go to sleep early. In reality, I’m not able to doze off until about 11pm, but even then I’m unable to sleep for more than one cycle. (One of my sleep cycles is about 90 minutes, almost like clockwork.) And for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, I’m either tossing and turning so much that my body bug thinks I’m awake, or I actually get up and go downstairs to read and write — like I am right now. (It’s 2:15am.)

And through all of this, I’m miserable from congestion and sneezing and sore eyes and a scratchy throat.

What I really need to do is see an allergist, of course. I need to get tested, and then start receiving shots to cope with whatever it is that’s setting me off. But I’m a Roth, and we Roths don’t like doctors, so I haven’t taken that step. I think I soon will.

By the end of last week, I thought I had things under control. I was pumping myself full of Allegra or Claritin or Zyrtec, depending on which seemed to be effective at the time. I was rinsing my sinuses with my neti pot. And I was trying to stay indoors.

On Friday afternoon, I met Craig for dinner in downtown Portland. After dinner, we walked over to see the Trailblazers game. My allergies were bothering me, but not too much. I’d prepared in advance. As we strolled toward the Steel Bridge, we passed beneath a bunch of flowering ornamental cherry trees. Almost immediately, my eyes began to burn, my throat began to itch, I was sneezing, and my sinsuses clogged. Ugh. During the game, I was miserable. I had trouble sleeping that night and, especially, the next night. (Which is the evening the above “bad night” graph is from.)

Finally, I went to see a doctor on Sunday morning. I was at the “immediate care” clinic when it opened at nine.

The doctor listened to my symptoms sympathetically. “And what about a fever?” she asked as she examined me.

“I don’t have one,” I said.

“Actually, you do,” she said. “And it’s fairly high. This may have started as an allergy problem, but it’s grown worse. You have a sinus infection.” She prescribed an antibiotic and Claritin-D, which contains pseudo-ephedrine.

Now, when I was younger, I took pseudo-ephedrine all the time, primarily in the form of Sudafed. But this stuff is no longer available over the counter in Oregon. Because it’s the raw material for methamphetamine, it’s a controlled substance available by prescription only. I haven’t had pseudo-ephedrine in years. (Not in this house, anyway, which means nearly six years.)

The good news is: The stuff works. By Sunday afternoon, I could breathe again. My sinuses were clear. I felt almost human. Here’s what my sleep graph looked like last night:

Light grey indicates that I’m lying down. Dark grey indicates I’m asleep.

Note that from 9 to 10:30pm, I was laying down in bed watching The Amazing Race with Kris, so that doesn’t really count. And after about 7am, I was actually awake, but in bed reading. So, between 10:30 and 7, I got some sleep. It wasn’t perfect sleep, but it was much better than it has been. The main problem was I felt like my sleep was very very light. I didn’t feel well rested.

All day today, I felt great. My sinuses were mostly clear, I felt alert, and I worked hard. After a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I worked for ten hours straight. It was only when Kris got home at around 6pm that I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. That’s pretty odd, since normally I’m hungry all the time. I forced myself to eat a modest dinner.

But the real trouble began at bedtime. We watched an episode of The Amazing Race and then turned out the lights to go sleep. “That’s strange,” I said. “I’m not tired.” Still, I did my best to doze off. I slept fitfully for about three hours (or two full sleep cycles). Then, at about 1:30, I woke up, ready to go to work. I was startled to see that it was the middle of the night.

And so here I am, sitting at the kitchen table with two cats at my side. (The cats love it when I can’t sleep; they think it’s a game.) A quick check online shows that I’m suffering from typical side effects of pseudo-ephedrine: I’m not tired, I’m not hungry, but I’m not really altogether here, either. Sounds like a perfect state of mind for “busy work”, of which I have much to do. But I know I’m going to be in bad shape in the morning.

I guess I’d better make an appointment with the allergist. I don’t want to go through this again next year.

I’m not sure why, but my family has a history of avoiding doctors. When I was a boy, I remember that my mother hobbled around on a sprained (broken?) ankle for days (weeks?) before going to get it checked out. When I was a freshman in college, I broke a finger while playing touch football, but just dealt with the pain for days before I finally sought medical attention.

There are many other such examples in my family’s history. (Remember my knee injury?)

Well, after my recent head injury, I headed down this same path again. After getting conked on the head on Sunday, I didn’t go to the doctor. After experiencing dizziness and nausea on Monday, I didn’t go to the doctor. After being unable to sleep Tuesday night because of neck pain, I didn’t go to the doctor. I didn’t even go to the doctor yesterday, despite almost getting killed because I couldn’t turn my head far enough to see a car on a cross-street.

Yes, I was stupid.

Finally, today I went to the doctor. He scolded me for waiting so long. “This isn’t anything to mess around with,” he said. Then he looked me over. He checked me for dizziness (I had a little more of that today), and he checked my range of motion. In the end, he told me his diagnosis: “You have a muscle spasm,” he said. “One of your neck muscles is switched on and doesn’t want to let go. And it hurts.”

What does he want me to do about it? The same thing I’m doing already: Take naproxen (Alleve), do some neck exercises, and just take it easy. And next time, go to the doctor as soon as I get hurt — not wait four days.

Seven years ago, I spent about two weeks living in utter agony from the pain of “frozen shoulder”, or adhesive capsulitis. The condition came on suddenly, and for more than ten days, it felt like somebody was digging a dagger into my left shoulder even when it moved a tiny bit. It was during this period that I felt the most intense pain that I’ve ever felt in my life. (Probably a consistent 6 or 7 on the pain scale.)

Well, tonight I’m experiencing pain that’s even worse.

Last week, Matt gave me his old elliptical trainer (which was very kind of him). On Sunday night at book group, I recruited some of the guys to help me haul it upstairs. Midway up the steps, a piece of the machine fell and conked me on the side of the head. Ouch!

I didn’t think much of it at the time. Yes, it hurt, and yes I got bump on my head almost immediately. But it didn’t seem like a big deal.

On Monday, though, I had some dizziness and some nausea and more than just some headaches. “Crap,” I thought. “Concussion.” I paid close attention throughout the day and evening, and fortunately the nausea didn’t become severe; I decided I didn’t need to see the doctor.

Today, the nausea and dizziness mostly subsided, only to be replaced by some soreness in the neck. (The headache was still there.) No big deal. I had editing to do on The Book, so I plowed through the work. Tonight the pains in my neck and head were severe enough that I bowed out of the bowling trip I’d planned to make with the guys.

I went to bed a little early.

I woke whimpering and crying about an hour later. SO MUCH PAIN! No matter how I turned my head (and I couldn’t do it without literally using my hand to lift my head by pulling my hair), it felt like somebody was trying to saw my neck off with a dull knife. “Kris,” I gasped. “Do we have any painkillers?”

We don’t. I’ve managed to make it downstairs to my new recliner. I’m sitting upright, which helps, but the pain is so intense I have no idea how I’m going to fall asleep. No idea. And it’s so difficult to concentrate that it’s taken 30 minutes to write this simple stream of consciousness piece. Please please please let the pain go away.

I guess I’ll watch Mary Tyler Moore reruns until I somehow manage to fall asleep…

One of the things that sucks about being productive is that I no longer know how to relax. Once, not so long ago, I was the Master of Slack. If there was work to be avoided, I avoided it. I preferred to relax — and I was good at it.

Now, though, the opposite is true. Perhaps I don’t do as much around the house as Kris would like, but that’s usually because I’m doing work of some sort, whether it’s for a book, a blog, or some related project. In fact, for the past four months, all I’ve done is work. (And complain about working.)

But my schedule is no longer crammed with things to do. Sure, I have my chore cloud, but there’s nothing that needs to be done RIGHT NOW. Yet because I’ve become conditioned to be in this hyper-focused work state, I’m finding it impossible to relax: My body is tense, and my mind is alert. It’s difficult to fall asleep at night. I don’t have the patience to read a book.

Yesterday, I tried to spend a lazy Sunday. I remember fondly the lazy Sundays from my youth, lounging around the trailer house with the funny pages, playing outside with Jeff and Tony. I also remember having nice lazy Sundays when Kris and I first moved into our house in Canby. But I haven’t had one of those in a long time.

So, yesterday I loafed on the couch (or tried to), petted the cats, read a book (or tried to), and watched a movie with Kris. It was nice. Today I tried more of the same. I walked down to the gym and back — a 5-1/2 mile round-trip. I drove out to the box factory, and then stopped at my favorite pizza parlor on the way home. Eventually I made my way up here to the office where I had vowed to play a computer game. But I can’t make myself do it. It seems like such a waste.

Instead, I’m going to continue my attempts to get into a groove here on foldedspace. I realize that nobody’s really reading anymore, but I’m sticking with the promise I made last summer when I moved this blog to jdroth.com (it used to live here). I intend for this to become an active, vibrant place again, just like it was in the olden days (circa 2004-05). But in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to write nearly every day.

So consider this a bit of practice. That seems like a good use of my time: It’s neither fully productive, but it’s not loafing around, either. Plus, I enjoy it. And maybe if I do this often enough, I’ll find my voice again, and foldedspace will return to its glory days. I think that’d be fun…

Now that I’m finished with the bulk of the work on Your Money: The Missing Manual, I finally have time to do stuff again, to live life. Last night I went bowling with the MNF group. This morning, for the first time since late September, I took a stroll through the neighborhood.

“Hey,” Kris said as I rolled out of bed. “On your way back from the gym, I need you to pick up three onions and a bag of ice.”

“Ugh,” I said. I hate going to the grocery store when I’m soaked in sweat. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I walk to the store.”

“Fine,” Kris said. “But then you have to get me a medium latté extra hot from the Oak Grove Coffee House.”

“Deal,” I said. I pulled on a stocking cap, warm gloves, and donned my backpack, then headed out the door. I decided to take the long way.

Right away I knew I’d made the right choice. It was one of those cool and misty grey mornings we Oregonians are so accustomed to. But it wasn’t too wet. I strolled toward Risley Park, listening to the birds and the squirrels and the train in the distance. I waved hello to the folks who passed by walking thier dogs. I smiled to see so many cats watching from windows, waiting for their people to let them outside.

I walked up the hill at Courtney Ave. At the intersection with McLoughlin, I had to wait for the light. As I did, I listened to the murmur from the old men gathered outside GG’s Deli, smoking their cigarettes and sipping their coffee.

As I crossed the street, I spotted another fellow walking 100 feet in front of me. He, too, was wearing a stocking cap, warm gloves, and a backpack. And he was cutting across the old G.I. Joe’s parking lot as if he were headed to the grocery store.

In fact, that’s exactly what he was doing. I followed him the rest of the way: past the hardware store, down the side street, and across the parking lot to Fred Meyer. “I wonder if he took the long way, too,” I thought. I’d just spent about an hour walking three miles to make a one-mile trip. But I was too chicken to catch up and chat with him.

“I need to write this down,” I thought as I entered the store. I cursed myself for failing to bring paper with me. It seems like every time I leave my notebook at home, there’s something I want to write. No problem. I headed over to the school supplies, grabbed a a notebook, and now I’m sitting at a table in the patio furniture section, writing a blog post.

But I really need to get on my way. Kris needs three onions and a bag of ice (not to mention her medium latté extra hot), and I think I may want to take the long way home.