This evening has been one big pile of AWFUL, mitigated only by the stuffed zucchini I made for dinner.

I spent the day working on cleaning out the trailer where most of my non-essential junk has been stored for the last five years. That was fine for the first couple of hours, until this afternoon, when I realized that something--I'm thinking mold or mildew--was aggravating my lungs something fierce. We're talking coughing and phlegm, the whole nine yards. That left me feeling crappy for the rest of the day.

Then, while I was cooking my (delicious) dinner, some major family drama went down. (This may be the subject of a friendslocked post later, if I don't find a friend to talk to first.) Suffice it to say that it was very unpleasant, and now I'm trying to decide whether to move out or what.

And now, I'm freezing. I'm so cold, I can't stop shaking. It can't be less than 70F in here--probably a little more. So, that's got me worried that the irritation from earlier has already triggered a bout of bronchitis. I seem to get it from air irritants more than actual infections, and it can crop up a surprisingly short time after exposure. One time our neighbor burnt a coat full of dry-cleaning chemicals in his back yard, and I was down flat within a couple of hours. When it happens, it almost always puts me in bed for a week, and I don't want that!

Of course, I don't usually get chills with bronchitis, so probably I'm just cold and being a hypochondriac--I do have that tendency. On the other hand, I also have this mysterious ache in my lower right jaw. Maybe an allergic reaction to something in the trailer?

And on top of everything else, I have to be in town at 8:00 tomorrow morning for training for my volunteer work. I'll just hope that whatever's going on, it's cleared up by morning.

My allergies have been hellish lately. Actually, they have been all summer--I was taking Claritin daily even living in the dorm with air-conditioning and no animals. But they've been really bad for the past couple of days. We're dogsitting for the three dogs, and I'm assuming that's why, but it's getting to the point where it's actually affecting my productivity which is BAD.

I'm taking a Claritin first thing after I wake up in the morning, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I could take a Benadryl, but while it would get rid of the allergies, it would also completely knock me out, which kind of ruins the whole wanting to be productive thing. Do any of you have suggestions? Alternate medications I could try? It'd have to be over-the-counter, because I can't really afford doctor visits or prescriptions right now. And unfortunately "not living in a house with three dogs" is also not an option right now.

(PS: wanna see the dogs in question? Go look at my knitting blog.)

This week, Aud and I are house-sitting for a staff member on campus. We had planned on actually living in their house this week, but . . . that didn't work out. They have a dog and a cat. I'm highly allergic to cats, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I mean, I regularly make longish visits to a house with two cats, and my allergies are super-easy to control there--I pop a Claritin once a day, and I'm fine.

Here's how it broke down:

Friday: We visit the house to get the low-down of how to take care of the animals. We're in the house for maybe half an hour, and by the time we leave, my lungs have gone all tight and wheezy. It gets better as soon as we leave, though, so I make a mental note to definitely bring Claritin. That night, I make the mistake of working with an angora-blend yarn, confirming my suspicions that I'm allergic to angora. I go to bed with a stuffy head and hope it will be better in the morning. (It wasn't, by the way.)

Sunday: I take a Claritin, and we move in in the evening. My allergies are mostly fine all night, and things look good!

Monday (today): I wake up with a runny nose and start sneezing almost immediately. It hasn't been 24 hours yet since I last took a Claritin, so I try to tough it out. The sneezing/dripping gets worse and finally I break down and take the Claritin a couple hours early . . . too little, too late, though--I didn't manage to catch it in time. I try to ignore the fact that I feel terrible.

I mail off my box of items for Dulaan and run a few other errands. My allergies get better while I'm out, but I have to use my inhaler (for the first time in months), and I feel really weak. Back at the house, I buckle down to read, and actually make pretty good progress, but by this point I'm blowing my nose pretty much constantly and my hands are shaking. We eat dinner, and I try to press on, but my second shower of the day did not help. Finally, I can't take the allergies anymore, and since the lack of air conditioning has given Aud a migraine, we feed the animals and bail out back to the dorm.

So, now both of us are miserable, her with her migraine, me with my lingering allergies. I got some Greek done, but not all of it, and I had to quit--I feel like crap, and the sides of my nose are bright red. I took a Benadryl (if any of you happen to know that taking a Benadryl on top of a Claritin is dangerous, please don't tell me--my day has been bad enough), and now I'm zoned out in front of the computer hoping that it will work.

I really hope tomorrow will be better.