Its an amazing thing medicine. Having been ill for ages I'm not quite sure how I would have begun to get better without it. Makes you realise just how exposed early man must have been to ailments and injury. I bet Neanderthals didn't live that long at all.
After two months of gradual respiratory decline peaking with near-hospitalisation last Friday I was finally diagnosed by our GP, a severe allergic reaction to something resulting in sudden onset asthma. Whether its long term I don't know but hopefully a man in a white coat will tell me one day. I'm just glad to be breathing fully again and letting the air in. Shortness of breath all day and night is a scary thing and I sympathise with anyone who suffers from it.
As for now that amazing thing medicine is working wonders and a crash course of steroid tablets over five days is blasting away the inflammation on my windpipe and reducing all the nasty symptoms like wheezing, shortness of breath, cracked voice, coughing and gagging.
The Godzilla breath pills are backed up by a steroid inhaler and a Ventolin inhaler. I may be on the Ventolin for a long time but I hope not. Last Friday I enjoyed it via a masked nebuliser, which was like breathing alpine air for the first time in months! I think that was the start of my recovery.
Currently on sick leave I'm enjoying doing not much at all. I need to get my strength back if I'm to get back to work soon so I'm taking it steady and with fully inflated lungs doing a few household chores. Missus Moonbase has done everything for ages and deserves a Project SWORD Supremo badge for starters!
Its a funny thing an allergic reaction. I've wondered what I could have done to trigger one: something I ate, something I drank, something I touched or breathed in? The docs don't know yet.
We have had a doggy friend staying more than usual but he's been here off and on for ten years so I don't think its dog hair. The most likely allergen is mould in my opinion. Mould either at home or elsewhere.
I say at home as we do have a few patches of the stuff on one wall, which we were in the process of dealing with with the installation of a Drymaster unit, which we probably will do soon as our home has been classed as partly damp.
A more likely culprit is the huge pile of wet leaves we shifted in the garden or clearing out our mouldy shed.
We cleared out our mouldy shed in February. I had had a bad cold in January and maybe the two things didn't gel. The shed was stuffed with old furniture, pictures, books, jigsaws, toys, ornaments, videos and cassettes.
This is worrying as part of this is as a result of my collecting and in part Missus Moonbase too when she had the collectors bug. I fear we have strayed into that evil twin of collecting, namely hoarding.
I personally think its easy to let collecting turn into hoarding. My reluctance to throw away old stuff is a daily thing. Deep down I think it may have something to do with the fact that most of my childhood possessions were thrown away when we moved house in 1977. Who knows.
We do have a hoarding problem at Moonbase. There's old stuff piled up in the loft, spare room and our other shed. Its out of the way but its there brooding like Smaug on his dusty mounds.
One day we will have to tackle it but the mouldy shed, culprit or not, has put me off. When we do face the dust devil in the future we'll be wearing masks that for sure and we may need some help. There'll be masks for everyone!
For now I am happy to be away from allergens if that's at all possible and look forward to full breaths of clean air again every day.
It would make a good Ridley Scottesque film title, A L L E R G E N. I just don't want to be in it!
Have you any experience with hoarding stuff and or allergens readers?
