Skipping spring

While most people eagerly await spring, I despair at the sight of the first robin that lands in my yard. Spring is the harbinger of trips to the doctor, investment in various nostrums and sleepless nights listening to barking coughs.

My family suffers from spring allergies--grass and trees are the culprits. The outward and visible sign that spring has sprung is a cough. Spring begins innocently with a polite cough that seems to signify nothing but a minor throat tickle. At that first cough, however, my tensions rise. I know what comes next. There will be several weeks of more and then more coughing until either one or both kids can't go more than 30 seconds without coughing. I will end up at urgent care with them where we will sit with other hacking patients until we are seen by a harried doctor who will administer a nebulizer albuterol breathing treatment that will do no good whatsoever. The doctor will also prescribe a codeine cough medicine that will help us all sleep and finally an antibiotic that will fix us up in less than 2 days.

Each year I say I'm going to get on top of their allergies before the season starts. I vow to start their allergy meds ahead of the invisible irritants that advance on my kids' lungs. But that first robin of spring somehow lands unnoticed and unwanted in my yard and the siege is on. And each year when I'm in the midst of the siege, I swear that I'm going to take the kids to a pulmonary specialist (the allergist was worse than nothing) to help properly defend them against the attack. But then the siege relents and the house is peaceful. I begin to believe that I've discovered the antidote, the perfect combination of drugs that will prevent the next spring's advance. But each spring proves me wrong. Spring sucks.