...ah spring, AH-CHOO !! (2012)

On March 22, I had several stalks of iris about to bloom,

the creeper was leafing-out,

and the weeping cherry was in full bloom.Of course, they were not the only flora in seasonal mode...

the oak tree in my back yard was blooming. It takes a perfect combination of rain and wind to prevent this blooming season from making me miserable for weeks, if it stays sunny and the blooms can have their full time on the tree, allowing the pollen to cover everything.

This is not a small problem for me because this is not a small tree anymore.

The leaves and branches seem almost yellow from the blooms, which as they dry up and fall off about 2 to 3 weeks later, cover everything with brittle, spent blossoms that pile up all over the place. If there are windy storms with soaking rains at just the right time, the pollen is washed off the blossoms quickly, so the spent ones are not so deadly, allergy-wise, even in their piles of dried, crunchy blooms.

If left to their own happy plans,[no storms to wash or blow away the pollen], I get a couple of weeks of this, along with horrible sneezing, asthma attacks and if I'm not proactive, a nasty upper-respiratory congestion.

This year, thank the Lord, we had the perfect series of cool cloudy days, retarding the blooming and release of pollen, beginning almost the day after these shots were taken. Then we had windy rain, on and off for several days, washing away the nasty stuff.

The allergy season will continue into May, but then I should be able to back-off the asthma medications a bit. I haven't said much about the horrible asthma attack I had on February 11, sending me to Urgent Care on February 12, my Dr. on February 28, then to an Immediate Care on 3/28 with spiking blood pressure, back on 3/29 with a bad reaction to the HBP meds, back on 4/1 for a BP check which showed it the highest yet and finally back to my Dr. of 30 years on 4/6. He took my BP, it was 35 pts lower than on 4/1, so we removed all decongestants from my regime, he gave me a steroidal nasal spray, HBP meds that seem to not "bother" me and a non-statin cholesterol med that has to be OKed by the HMO. Since I'm allergic to statins, that shouldn't be a problem.

I have an appointment with my "new" pcp doctor on Thurday. My long-time Dr. is not in the HMO system, so I hope that the new doctor will work-out.

Perhaps someday soon, I'll have the time to explain my health insurance issues. Of course, this assumes that soon, everything will work through the mega state employees service that manages my health insurance.