Ragweed(?) delenda est
Sep. 13th, 2020 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness, (mild) fire]
Holy *shit*, September air is fucking *toxic*.
I've been using a shitty nosepiece-less mask if I'm just going out in the backyard and not leaving the property, and that was fine for spring and summer but a couple weeks ago I learned it does *not* cut it for fall. *Two minutes* of herb-picking was enough to give me a sore throat.
Yesterday, I neglected to give my surgical-style cloth mask my usual super-tight nosepiece pinch before work, leaving it on its default moderate tightness, and three and a half hours later my nose was running. I pinched the nosepiece tighter after that, but the damage was likely already done (though another hour of theoretically-indoor-but-people-open-the-front-door-a-lot air and an outdoor commute couldn't have *helped*): my sinuses were fucked up until about dawn, even with pseudoephedrine in my system. I'm *still* not 100%, though much improved.
---
It feels weird to be worried about *my* air quality when my social-media feeds are full of people dealing with smoke that blots out the sky and COVID-19 rates of *200 per 700k population per _day_ holy fucking _shit_*. (*taps on calculator* and that's *better* than the U.S. national average?? god, I knew they said America was fucked up but it doesn't really hit home until you scale it down to the county-level data you're used to working with†)
But bad stuff is still bad even when it's not maximally bad, and it does get to me, having one (1) place in the known universe with safe, breathable air. (And my brother occasionally complains about how bad the air quality in our house is, which makes me wonder what I'm missing out on by having this quality as my maximum.) I'm tired of my body being increasingly restrictive about what kinds of air it will permit (and, perhaps, increasingly debilitated when I fail to maintain its standard: historically I don't usually get nose symptoms, though to be fair there *have* been exceptions). I'm tired of jealousy, watching my neighbours hang out outside like it's no big deal and only put masks on to go into stores. I miss the smell of grass, and I miss feeling safe on my own back porch, and I miss picnics. And I don't even understand *why*, or know whether it's possible to do anything about it other than just avoid triggers, to keep my mask on and my nosepiece pinched tight and try to hold the poison back.
(I haven't had a chance to ask my GP if she has any other ideas. I won't have a chance to talk to the allergist again if nasal symptoms become routine. I don't go anywhere but work and buying essentials, and I'm *especially* not going to medical centres if I can possibly avoid it.)
---
†I should probably include a reference here: my county is ~550k and we're Worried because we recently had a day with 19 new cases and several days with 5, as opposed to our usual 1 - 3. (We had a few (mostly non-consecutive) days with 0 around one incubation period after the mask law came into effect, but then it went back to 1 - 3 again: I guess people risk-compensated?) ↩
Holy *shit*, September air is fucking *toxic*.
I've been using a shitty nosepiece-less mask if I'm just going out in the backyard and not leaving the property, and that was fine for spring and summer but a couple weeks ago I learned it does *not* cut it for fall. *Two minutes* of herb-picking was enough to give me a sore throat.
Yesterday, I neglected to give my surgical-style cloth mask my usual super-tight nosepiece pinch before work, leaving it on its default moderate tightness, and three and a half hours later my nose was running. I pinched the nosepiece tighter after that, but the damage was likely already done (though another hour of theoretically-indoor-but-people-open-the-front-door-a-lot air and an outdoor commute couldn't have *helped*): my sinuses were fucked up until about dawn, even with pseudoephedrine in my system. I'm *still* not 100%, though much improved.
---
It feels weird to be worried about *my* air quality when my social-media feeds are full of people dealing with smoke that blots out the sky and COVID-19 rates of *200 per 700k population per _day_ holy fucking _shit_*. (*taps on calculator* and that's *better* than the U.S. national average?? god, I knew they said America was fucked up but it doesn't really hit home until you scale it down to the county-level data you're used to working with†)
But bad stuff is still bad even when it's not maximally bad, and it does get to me, having one (1) place in the known universe with safe, breathable air. (And my brother occasionally complains about how bad the air quality in our house is, which makes me wonder what I'm missing out on by having this quality as my maximum.) I'm tired of my body being increasingly restrictive about what kinds of air it will permit (and, perhaps, increasingly debilitated when I fail to maintain its standard: historically I don't usually get nose symptoms, though to be fair there *have* been exceptions). I'm tired of jealousy, watching my neighbours hang out outside like it's no big deal and only put masks on to go into stores. I miss the smell of grass, and I miss feeling safe on my own back porch, and I miss picnics. And I don't even understand *why*, or know whether it's possible to do anything about it other than just avoid triggers, to keep my mask on and my nosepiece pinched tight and try to hold the poison back.
(I haven't had a chance to ask my GP if she has any other ideas. I won't have a chance to talk to the allergist again if nasal symptoms become routine. I don't go anywhere but work and buying essentials, and I'm *especially* not going to medical centres if I can possibly avoid it.)
---
†I should probably include a reference here: my county is ~550k and we're Worried because we recently had a day with 19 new cases and several days with 5, as opposed to our usual 1 - 3. (We had a few (mostly non-consecutive) days with 0 around one incubation period after the mask law came into effect, but then it went back to 1 - 3 again: I guess people risk-compensated?) ↩
