Pollen is necessary for life and also cumbersome to live in and around. It’s pollen season here now. Yesterday it was so muggy and windy as we watched the storms building on the west side of the state to slowly make their way here, the sky turned grey with a yellow haze. Why? Because spring has sprung and the pine trees did not miss the memo. While driving back from 1‘s optometry appointment I watched as a fog of yellow pollen slowly blew off of a tree on the side of the road, dispersing like a low level cloud. The horizon looked like a controlled burn was in the area, but the smell of smoke was no where to be had. It was all yellow.
I don’t remember being bothered by pollen in the past but this year has is all affected. Monday my sister flew in for an extended visit and we spent the day at a historical park making a day of the hour drive to the airport. We spent all day outside in the pollen and we had masks on so when we got home there was some eye itching and throat tickling but nothing too bad. But the next day we spent the day outside jumping on the yellow trampoline and sliding down the yellow slide. Everyone has a sore throat, sneezing, itching eyes, 4’s left eye turns red and waters as soon as I step outside with her, 3’s nose is basically a faucet when outside now and 1 never complains of a sore throat unless she has a post nasal drip. We all took a nice pollen reducing bath tonight to attempt to get some relief. It’s awful.
When I was still working in the GI clinic I had a co-worker walk into work with watery puffy eyes, sneezing up a storm laughing to himself. I asked him what was going on and he said on his way home from work the night before he had his windshield wipers on and forgot to turn them off. Over the evening pollen collected on his car. That morning he joyfully walked to his car, coffee in hand and pushed his automatic start button, his wipers swooshed across the windshield and propelled a cloud of pollen right at him and his coffee. So here he was at work, having had just enough time to change his scrubs but not shower again before coming to work, brewing a pot of coffee in the break room before the day even got started looking like he could be the star pupil for an Allegra commercial.
The thing about pollen here is it’s not just a “oh give it a week or so and it will let up” event that occurs, it is a season! It is MONTHS. In fact every morning our weatherman tells us how high the pollen counts are, not that you need anyone to tell you, you can see the yellow dust on your porch, car, grass, literally everything looks like you’ve got a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses on. Even when it rains, the puddles have a yellow hue and when they dry there is a nice ring of yellow grime where the puddle once was.
A few summers back I came in from an afternoon run and used a hand towel to wipe off my face while I sat on the front porch talking to my in laws and playing with the girls. 1 was only 4 or so at the time and she used the towel to “clean” the chairs which was her favorite thing to play at the time. So she wiped all the chairs and cushions and side walk, anything with the yellow dust on it. The red towel had a damp yellow powder throughout. When Tanner finished running he came up to the porch beat with sweat pouring down his face, 1 kindly gave him the towel to wipe off which he gingerly did. His instantly started sneezing and prancing about saying “it burns my face burns what the heck is on this towel” his eyes started to swell and he looked down at the towel in his hands, and his hands that now all had that sweat moistened yellow pollen powder everywhere.
It’s inescapable. Even if covid is no longer a thing and restrictions ease, we will be under quarantine. From the dang pollen.
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