A toddler, after rolling on the grass in the front yard, enters the house, his legs covered with hives. His mother dabs gentian violet (not quite the right treatment, but consumer medical knowledge was primitive in the Fifties) to relieve the itching and swelling. Now the welts are dark purple, close to the color of the India ink in his grandfather’s inkwell, and nearly as hard to wash off.
He lives with a runny nose and watery eyes for the rest of his childhood and into his teens. He always carries two handkerchiefs because one is sopping by noon. The doctors say that he is highly allergic to grass and tree pollens. Antihistamines relieve the symptoms but make him very sleepy, so he only takes them at bedtime. He travels thousands of miles across an ocean to attend college, and his hay fever disappears! He decides not to go home and settles in California for career, esthetic, and lifestyle reasons, but surely one consideration was relief from a chronic condition that has plagued him throughout his life.
But ten years later the rhinitis returns. He takes over-the-counter medications, but his condition worsens until some days he can barely function. Finally, he goes to an allergy specialist, where the nurses draw a checkerboard on his back and prick each square with extracts from plants, insects, or animals. Many of the squares become inflamed to the maximum level on the chart. The doctor prescribes immunotherapy injections, and after a couple of months he can function again. However, unlike other patients, his sensitivity to allergens cannot be eliminated, and he must return at least every other week for his shots.
He realizes, now, that the predisposition to allergy is in his genes. His move as a young adult provided only a temporary respite; the body takes its time but always becomes sensitized to the local flora. Running to New Mexico or Arizona isn’t the answer, so he may as well accept the permanence of his condition and live where he’s happy.
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