This is the tale of a woman who has never ever ever in the history of ever suffered from allergies. She’s a bit smug. She eats reasonably healthy foods if you don’t count the lack of control around pastries and cake and chocolate. But who’s counting? She takes her vitamins. She spends lots of time outdoors.

She is now the victim of a crazy ass pollen attack. She is also losing her marbles as evidenced by the constant reference to herself in the third-party and the delirium brought on by allergy meds wreaking havoc with any form of mental acuity she previously possessed and which is also responsible for her inability to form and end sentences as the Grammar Gods intended and maybe she should stop to breathe and give her fingers a break.

I’m a zombie. For real. Also, how the f**k do allergy sufferers do this every year?

For the past six days my eyes have been swollen shut or almost shut, they’re leaking strange fluids—Should this come with a parental advisory? GF12 (gross factor 12)—and the whites have changed to bloodshot red. As in there is no white to be seen anywhere in the orbital area. Throw in a sinus headache that has me teetering on the edge of I’m gonna lose my cool cliff and it’s sexy times at our house.

Any sane and knowledgeable allergy sufferer would hunker down in a well-ventilated house with the windows barricaded* against the pollen menace. I’ve chosen a different plan of attack. Here are the numbers since this began:

Visits to the stable: 3

Stops at garden centres to buy plants that produce pollen: 2

Times spent planting the pollen creators: 4

Hikes and walks: 3

Runs: 0 because I can’t breathe.

Times spent moaning and groaning and generally feeling sorry for myself because I’m an impatient patient: 1,658,934

I don’t think my plan is working. Which leads to today’s epiphany: get thee to a doctor. So I am. And she will laugh and laugh because she knows me and all about my previous no-allergy smugness.

* Naturally the word barricaded makes me think of Les Misérables and I’m now singing Beyond the Barricade loudly enough that my dog is trying to escape to a neighbour’s house.

** In my drug-addled state I agreed to join a group of people giving up their vices. For many people that’s eating chips, for me it’s cake and pastries and chocolate. The moral of this story is don’t take drugs. It leads to poor decisions.

Exactly what I look like now minus the bad teeth. Also, I’m not holding any severed limbs nor would I know where to get one. Scout’s honour.