The Human Barometer

When my nose starts tingling and my throat starts to itch, the first question that comes to my mind is "may bagyo ba?!!" Usually there is. Pwedeng nasa may Taiwan pa or somewhere in Mindanao.. basta may Typhoon na nagdevelop na or nagdedevelop pa. Hence the tag "Human Barometer"

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y132/kwini/nebulizingQ.jpg

When I start getting early morning rhinitis, this means that the weather is changing.. and usually there's a tropical convergence of some sort somewhere within the Phil's area of responsibility.. AND its the time to start taking my antihistamine. Lest my allergy develops into an asthma attack and disrupts my normally scheduled life.

I come from a family with a medical history of asthma.. my maternal grandmother has it, my sister has it, my bother had it as a child,and my mother (like me) had a latent expression of this gene later in life. I grew up without any indications that I have asthma, and chided my sister for being sickly (to the point that sometimes I would think she was just KSP). She was always absent and weakly, and NEVER had perfect attendance in any of her classes since nursery up till she graduated college. I on the other hand, always went to class and was quite the active student. I would join physically challenging activities that my sister could never engage in.. even training to be a CAT officer in High School. My breathing was always clear and I neglected the feeling of having oxygen freely available for my breathing pleasure.

When started having attacks in 1999 ( I think) I blamed it on my thesis since I was working with several toxic volatile solvents. Now I have attacks twice a year, during the onset of rainy season and right before the Christmas season. During the latter I do my best to stay well, otherwise I wont enjoy the Holidays at all.

Its quite frustrating to be sickly when early in your life as an adult you're used to do anything-- from playing basketball to drinking alcohol till the wee hours of the morning. Now, I'm usually NGARAG from taking all those drugs (note: these are antihistamines, anti asthma, antibiotics and other "anti's" you can think of..) when my nose and throat get sore.

May opening kaya sa PAGASA?? Maybe I can use this darn sickness to good use...