Grass, Grass, Baby

So, I finally got tested for allergies. At that scary steerage vampire lab I mentioned in an earlier post. This was part three in the trifecta of tests to investigate my sinuses.

This time, I was the only one there. The place was eerily quiet, and when I told the tech that I have been blind and swoony lately, she grimaced and asked me to lie down on a hard, Freud-like chaise for the procedure. "Um, is that really regulation?" I asked. "Shouldn't I just concentrate on being cooperative?" "I'd much rather you pass out lying down," she said, "than somewhere I'm going to have to drag your dead weight to the couch anyway."

Well, when you put it that way. I lay down and she began that tentative, first-date-like questioning they must be trained to do, where they ask something totally unrelated to any previous conversation in a quiet, gentle voice, like you're a skittish colt they're trying to corral. "So, what are you doing this weekend?" she asked.

"Um," I said, gazing up through the window at the surprisingly blue sky. "I have a show tonight. That should be fun." The needle went in. I could barely feel it. I took a deep breath. "The clouds are really beautiful right now," I whispered. "Like little shreds of cotton."

But she was done with me. Both conversationally and literally. She snapped off the rubber, gestured to the cotton ball I was to compress, and strode across the room with the test tubes filled with my human essence. "Can I have a band-aid?" I whimpered, but I felt okay. She strapped me in a bunch of gauze and I limped out the door.

I waited more than a week to hear back. Finally, a nurse called me--not the foul-mouthed Jill I have grown so fond of (I think she's disgusted with me) but another, named Trish. She said that I am not allergic to:

pet hair
pollen
dust mites
mold
cockroaches

It was a surprise and relief to learn I could be locked in a room full of cats, dogs, 19th century furniture, books from Grandma's attic, water leaks and giant bugs, and still feel fabulous.

However: "You're allergic to grass. And not a little allergic. Moderately allergic. Three types: Bermuda, Johnson, and Mumble [not actually Mumble, but I couldn't hear her.]"

Grass, dear Readers? GRASS? The softly waving green in which girls in linen dresses gambol? The bendy, romantic spears through which lovers run to meet each other? The stuff in which Bella and Edward lie and sparkle while gazing at each other with googly eyes and the camera dollies in a crazy circle? The ground cover ostensibly planted in front of our house which has been deader than Edward lo, these many three years?

Yes, Readers. THAT grass. And apparently, I don't need to gambol in it, because it travels through the air. Though I did suddenly make the Holmes-like connection that my legs break out in hives when I recline in the stuff without a blanket.

I asked, "Do you ever have people whose sinuses are also a mess come up allergic to absolutely NOTHING?" And she said yes, all the time. But that is not me, because I am allergic to grass.

What to do? Apparently, the first step is introducing some of this allergen (like, pureed?) into my body through shots or somesuch. We're going to discuss it. I wanted to know if that was going to make me totally unable to breathe at all, but they reassured me that more of those magic steroid shots should even me out.

Okay then. Let's do this thing. Bring on the blades. Long may they wave.