Claritin Confession

Hello, my name is Mark and I am addicted to Claritin.

Okay, maybe not addicted, but I do take it every morning along with my cholesterol medication and my anti-crazy pills. It's just one more thing that makes me aware of the fact that I'm aging. As a younger man, I never got headaches, I never gained weight, and I certainly was not allergic to anything. I had that kind of Herculean teenage metabolism well into my late 20s. My, how things change.

I still don't get headaches much at all. (Something for which I am very grateful.) As I've mentioned before, I got over the gaining-weight thing long ago. (I figure I've averaged about a 10 lb gain each year for the past three or four years.) Until recently, I've maintained my lack of allergies. This spring, everything changed.

I don't know if it's my age and the tectonic shift of my body's immune system or if there just happens to be something new blooming here in rural Illinois this year or what. All I know is, I was a snotty, itchy, sneezy, goobery mess for a couple of weeks while I was in denial.



You know those little things on the inside corners of your eyes, the place where your eye boogers collect? For about two weeks, those things felt like there were crawling with microscopic ants. They itched and itched and itched and itched. It drove me nuts. It felt so good to rub them (and rub them hard!) but, as soon as I was done, they'd start itching again PLUS my eyes would turn bright pink and bloodshot. So, not only would my allergies pester me, I'd then also look like I'd been drinking all afternoon. What a bonus.

Waking up in the morning was also a joy because it was as though little construction workers for John's Mucus Installation climbed my face in the night, pulled up their little green cement mixers, and dumped several layers of goo down my nose. I kept having dreams I was suffocating because...lo and behold, I was suffocating! I couldn't breathe because I had so much snot up my nose. (Too much information? Sorry about that.)

Annnnnyway, Suzanne convinced me to start taking Claritin. I did for a couple of days and everything cleared up. It was a miracle! So I went a little Bush-y and said, "Mission accomplished." I stopped taking the pills because - I was done, right? I lasted for a day or so before Suzanne saw me itching the insides of my eyes with a pad of steel wool. She gently explained to me that, in order for the Claritin to work, you have to keep taking it. Sigh.

So, here I am, taking my small handful of pills every morning, feeling like I'm well on my way to getting one of those little daily pill organizers.


Sigh. I guess I shouldn't focus so much on the fact that I have developed an allergy or that I have to take another pill to keep it in check. Instead, I should be grateful that there's medicine that actually works and that I can get some whenever I want. The pioneers didn't have Claritin, did they? No, they did not. They had to walk from here to Utah in wagons and was there ragweed in the air? You bet. Were there pioneers with names like Elias and Orrin and Jabez whose noses seized up tighter than a banker's smile when the wind blew pollen their way? You bet.

I should be grateful for what I've got rather than worry about what I've lost. After all, I'm sitting in my air conditioned living room, Claritin coursing through my veins, as I write this. Things could definitely be worse.