Oklahoma Dreaming: Achoo
by Donna Schoenkopf
Went to my new allergy doctor because I have to use my Albuterol inhaler almost every day these days.
Sometimes two or three times a day.
I thought I’d get allergy shots so I could do away with all that medication and scary rides in the middle of the night through lightning storms to the emergency room to be rescued from my smothering asthma attacks.
I looked in the Yellow Pages and found Dr. Pratt. The only allergy doctor in town.
He is a gentle man, tall, kind eyes and soft voice. He chuckles easily at my jokes.
On my first visit we talked a long time about my history of this and that and then he gave me a new inhaler which sprays a new form of cortisone into my lungs to eliminate inflammation. I am to use it twice a day, every day.
My mind flashed back (as it always does when I hear the word cortisone) to a movie I saw a million years ago with James Mason as a nice-guy-husband-father who is given CORTISONE and turns into a homocidal maniac and chases his wife around the house with a very large butcher knife.
Hmmmmmmmm.
Well, because he was so dear and kind AND the expert, I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t like any of these newfangled medicines and that I’m pretty much Nature Girl, organic food when I can find it, no pesticides, etc., and do not want any more crap in my body, which is old and fragile enough as it is. And fat. And I don’t want to chase anyone around the house with a butcher knife.
So I went home with my inhaler of poison in my tight little fist. I’d figure it out. Somehow.
I followed instructions and used it twice a day and gargled twice after using, as instructed, to rid my mouth and throat of the steroids that tend to coat those areas. (Side effects: you can end up with thrush in your mouth and a hoarse throat. And osteoporosis. And painful limbs. And a compromised immune system. Need I go on? There IS more, but I shall not dwell.)
After two weeks, when I found my voice getting hoarse from the steroids, I stopped.
It so happened that I had an appointment for allergy testing the very next day and thought that it would be a perfect time to tell my doctor that I had disobeyed him and that I was sorry, but I just couldn’t do the Inhaler of Death.
So I drove over to the hospital, got mixed up as to where I was to go, finally got to the proper destination, which, it turned out, was the DOCTOR’S OFFICE!!?!, and was taken quickly by the sweet and kind nurse, who huffed and puffed down the hallway because she’s fatter than I am, to a pale blue room and asked if I minded if another nurse watched how the testing was done.
No, that would be fine.
Then the door opened and THREE nurses came in. I undressed from the waist up, put on my hospital gown backwards, lay on the table, and got my back mapped out. Sweet Nurse used an ink pen. She made a whole bunch of circles on my back—vertical rows which went from my shoulders to my waist. It felt good. (Sometimes I feel touch deprived, being single and all. It’s pretty bad when your most delicious physical feeling is getting circles drawn on your back with a pen!) She talked sweetly to the women and gave them precise and intelligent instruction.
Next came the injection of various materials into the circles to see if they would swell up. Poke, poke, poke. Poke. Pokepokepokepokepokepokepokepokepoke. Poke! It didn’t hurt except for the circles closest to my side. Even that was pretty mild.
(not Donna)
Sweet Nurse told the nurses that “whelps” would form in the allergic circles. From then on the OTHER nurses used the word “whelps.” They all stressed the p. I didn’t correct them. I am learning, in my old age, to keep my mouth shut.
Sweet Nurse then said to the three nurses that sometimes you get mixed up and so just go back and ... I didn’t listen to the rest. Just kept thinking about my cat allergies being mixed up with the blueberry and ragweed circles.
The women filed out of the room after Sweet Nurse put a timer on. Twenty minutes. I lay there all alone. I felt a couple of itchy areas. That was all. My thoughts drifted.
About ten minutes later the doctor entered. I IMMEDIATELY confessed to not using the inhaler (once a Catholic, always a Catholic), explaining about how I hated all the side effects and how I was Nature Girl and all. I even told him about James Mason. But I still felt enormous guilt. It was as though I was insulting his expertise and I could see that’s exactly what HE thought. Which made me feel worse. But I didn’t retreat. I just kept apologizing profusely, over and over. He didn’t say anything for a while. Just listened, with a little smile on his face. Then he told me about an 86-year-old lady who always wanted tons of medication. Whatever he’s got that’s new. Says, “Gimme something new, Doc.” Then he said that maybe the middle way would be the more sensible way. And that he had another medication without cortisone.
Because of the guilt I was feeling, I sort of said yes, that I would MAYBE take the medication he was offering as an alternative. After all, it wasn’t a steroid and it was an older medication, meaning it had been on the market long enough to show problems. So he gave me more samples and I tried (again) to explain that I had been in the smog of L.A. for twenty years, and that students at my school had the equivalent of pack-a-day smokers’ lungs, and wanted to clean myself out. But I took the samples anyway and then he read my back bumps.
He took a long time writing things down and measuring a couple of times. Then he handed me a hand mirror and had me stand with my back to the wall mirror. There were some welts. NOT “WHELPS”!!
Seems I am allergic to grasses, ragweeds, cats, horses, and ash trees.
He told me how I could get started on my shots. And gave me some Singulair pills and literature on vitamin D3, which, it turns out, is vital to protecting against asthma and all kinds of chronic illnesses. And it’s NATURAL!! I shall take it. For sure. THAT, I can handle. And he gave me a bunch of stuff I didn’t look at. Pamphlets and stuff.
And I went home.
After a couple of days of looking at my samples of Singulair (and remembering Meredith taking her Albuterol AND Singulair and still gasping and wheezing) I nonchalantly picked up the pamphlets my saintly doctor had given me.
Oh ... my ... God ... HE HEARD ME!!! HE RESPECTED MY PHILOSOPHY!! HE IS MY HERO!! There, in my hand, was a whole bunch of stuff about products and methods of keeping allergens out of one’s poor, battered lungs without medication. Everything you needed. My faith in him leapt to new heights.
Thank you, thank you, Dr. Pratt! Kind Dr. Pratt! Good Dr. Pratt! Dr. Pratt, who listens!!
I CAN have cats!! I don’t have to take pills of death. I just have to protect myself from the allergens my cats produce.
I can’t keep Rosie and Che outside all the time because, as you know, an owl or the coyotes or Steve’s pit bulls will eat them. Literally. But they are outside all day and doing just fine, thank you.
It’s the night that’s the problem. I have no walls around my bedroom. I made a loft-like house, one big open room. So they sleep on my bed when they can get away with it. I feel horrible throwing Che off the bed every couple of minutes. He adores me as much as Fidel did. And he’s an orange tabby, like Fidel. And he’s in love with me, like Fidel was. And he sucks the back of my head whenever I’m too engrossed in Chris Matthews Hardball to pry him off . He’s actually left a welt (NOT whelp!!!) there. And I cuddle them when I get touch deprived. And how the hell do you keep cats away from you when you love each other anyway???
So some major cleaning and innovative thinking are required. I shall start with my unwalled bedroom area.
I think I’ll have a mosquito net thingy to keep them off my bed. They are pretty gorgeous in online pictures at Nicamaka.Net. And I’ll spray the upholstered furniture with allergy relief spray. And vacuum a lot with a HEPA filter. And wash the cats. (They’re gonna LOVE that!!) And take my weekly allergy shots which will start to work in six months to a year with a 70% success rate. And I’ll wash all my bedding every week in HOT water and buy good pillow and mattress covers. And I’ll buy a very expensive ($17.99 apiece) air filter for my heating/air conditioning unit. It’s supposed to filter 90% of allergens from the air.
THAT should do it, dontcha think?
I know some of you are thinking, “Jeez. She must be crazy. I’d just shoot ’em.”
Well, forget it, buddy. I ain’t shootin’ ’em.
After all, I am the crazy lady who delayed my departure from California for TWO DAYS, after locking up the emptied house I’d lived in for eight years, because Rosie the Cat had hidden under the aforementioned house and refused to come out until she was so hungry she couldn’t stand it anymore. (I stayed at the local Motel 6 in Wilmington those two days, where there were MAJOR drug dealers in the parking lot and regular police visits.) Yeah. Two days. And then, as we crossed the country to Oklahoma, she hid under the kingsize beds, which I had to pull apart every morning to get her.
You say, “Why did you let her loose in the motel??”
Well, she had to come out of the cat carrier SOMETIME. Fidel went under the bed with her every night, but HE would come when I called. PURRING! Because he loved me.
Eventually, Fidel got eaten by some Dark and Hungry Thing the second night here at Chigger Lake.
Rosie didn’t. Because she is scared of EVERYTHING and keeps her eye out for trouble.
So guess what?
I ain’t shootin’ her.
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
donna@fourstory.org
Comments
I wouldn’t give up my cat, Cheekies my 12 lb., 12 - year -old baby, for any reason in the world. I’m proud of you for speaking your mind to Dr. Pratt and he actually respecting your beliefs is AMAZING!
2008-11-16 by Violeta Rios
What a wonderful thing in life to find a doctor, any doctor, who will actually listen to you. You are indeed lucky. Please keep us informed. We care and we need to know how you and your cats are doing.
2008-11-14 by JoAnne Sanger