Hay Fever

May 19, 2014

Greetings from the innocent bystander,

There are very few elements of nature that are without a purpose.  For example, in spring some people are tempted to complain; it’s not summery enough, it’s wetter than last year, the sun comes up at odd hours.  Nature provides pollen to give people something to take their mind off the spring conditions.  Instead they can think about sneezing without too much loss of dignity.

Hay fever is rampant this time of year, affecting the majority of people with symptoms ranging from watery eyes and sneezing and congestion, but ironically no fever. 

I have not thought at all why it is called ‘hay fever’.  The name seems odd now, considering its feverless effects, and since many of us live in largely hay-free environments.   The name does produce an image: those big mounds of infectious hay, off-gassing all manner of fever inducing clouds.  Or am I thinking of straw?  On more than one occasion I have been corrected about ‘hay’ versus ‘straw’, but to be honest, I still don’t know which is which, except that there is no such thing as ‘straw fever’. 

It’s a well-known fact that hay fever can cause extreme digression.

There was a time when I could say I had no allergies.  As a matter of fact, I did say that.  I might have even said it with a certain smugness.  I may have felt that my impervious to such weaknesses was my own doing, a product of clean living and eating the right food, exercise and an ascetic lifestyle.  Yes, that might have seemed smug.

I did not know that perhaps one might develop allergies later in life.  I thought, in my naïve earlier existence, that since I didn’t sneeze in spring perhaps I had been given a genetic pass.  I had a post nasal drip exemption, an immunity passed on from the Highlands of Scotland where my ancestors were burning peat to stay warm which perhaps altered their DNA in some haggis induced pollen resistant mutation.  You can see why I had such confidence in this line of reasoning.

Spring explodes, intent on reproduction, and man is collateral damage.  We are minding our own business, our highly developed brains perhaps engaged in whatever occurs to us in spring, and we are hit by the fallout of a far inferior organism and turned into red nosed, weeping beings. 

For some of us, (I may now include my formerly smug self) the effusive spring effort brings on cold-like symptoms, which we do not deserve because we have been obsessively washing our hands all winter. 

It’s not just pollen of course; I understand that people are allergic to a variety of spring things. The irritants can come from all manner of plants, including flowers and trees and grasses other botanical things I don’t know the names of because I didn’t pay attention in school, thinking I would never need to know about stuff like that because of my youthful invulnerability to hay fever.  Suffice it to say, there are scores of spores to invade our pores when we’re outdoors doing our chores.

This onslaught causes what doctors call ‘Allergic rhinitis’ so they don’t have to explain the whole ‘hay fever’ dichotomy.  The medical world has developed a cornucopia of drugs to combat the symptoms of rhinitis.  These drugs have a myriad of side effects which ironically include ‘fever’. 

I know that scientists say that the spread of pollen and its cousins is a method of plant propagation.  But I suspect that in the big plans somewhere it was designed to have an impact on some other living things that otherwise might take arrogance to new levels. 

I will take my dose of pollen with good nature and accept that I am a flawed and imperfect being, susceptible to unflattering mucus and red nose.  I will try to concentrate on what good is brought about by spring and all of its flowering, and not too look too comical while sneezing.

Hope this finds you humbled,

David

Copyright © 2014 David Smith