Allergies

   I walk through the door and the smell of antiseptic fills my nose. Along the exteriors of the wall, there are the infamous not-so-comfy chairs that are all awkwardly connected by a wooden plank underneath the seats. The middle of the room is empty; drained of people. I cautiously approach the sign-in clipboard at the front desk, write my name in the fading ink of the pen provided and mark that I am here for an appointment. The doctor smiles at me with that twisted grin of his as he leads me to the nurses who check my vitals.

   There are boxes of “Puffs,” “Kleenex,” and those generic Wal-Mart brands that no one’s ever heard of, scattered across tabletops and laying haphazardly on more uncomfortable chairs. I’m here to get my allergies retested for the spring and winters to come. I dread the feeling of needles penetrating my skin as the nurse fills my shots with high concentrated liquids of brown and yellow, trying to make harmless small talk. I can feel the internal disturbance of my bloodstream even before she finishes. She sticks them, individually into the underside of my forearm.

   “Look, this one’s gold!” she exclaims. Please stop. Don’t try to make this fun – I know the difference between pain and happiness. Though, me being a teenager, she may be wary of my emotional stability.

   The liquid bubbles up beneath my skin as I hold back tears. I’ve been taking my Zyrtec D irregularly, and she disapproves.

   “How can you not need it during allergy season?” she questions my understanding of the allergies I’ve been living with since the age of six. The dependency upon medicine is never something I’ve been tolerant of, having independence woven through every lesson of my upbringing.

   She suggests nose sprays for my chronic sinus infections, “Sudafed is nice, but I would recommend Nasonex – they make a nice one that coats the insides of your nostrils.” Fantastic, just what I need. She goes on to propose a Nedi-pot; the dreaded of all objects to clear out the nose.

After she checks my blood pressure while squeezing the life out of my bicep, she checks my pulse and the doctor comes back with a smirk on his face.

   “I’d like to try a little experiment if you don’t mind,” he says as he places an ice cube on my left shoulder to test how my hives form. Though the doctor I previously saw told me how common this allergy was, my new doctor has decided to treat me as a unique piece of research. He’s sickeningly fascinated by my allergy to the cold.

   No, I’m not kidding you – I am allergic to the cold. The snow outside burns my skin and turns it to a blotchy, unattractive red that entices scratching until blood appears. The constant of cool air – winter, air-conditioning, everything – will graze my skin and form the repulsive bumps that only disappear when exposed to heat. There go the snowball fights, cool movie theatres, and the occasional winter walk. I can’t swim in any water below eighty degrees, or I’ll end up looking like a bumpy lobster by the time I exit the water. And there goes any possible fun I could ever experience in a public pool.

   My arms ache with the twenty different possibilities of allergies stuck beneath my skin – none of which I have a reaction to besides the control that is impossibly and painfully inflamed. If I so much as twitch a finger, the nurse will be back to pin me down; refusing to let me move in fear of the liquid escaping from the bubbles of skin that have all turned a putrid, bruised brown.

   When she returns to wipe the excess fluid from my forearms, the marks of entry from each needle remain; reminding me that though I can get weekly injections and I can take my Zyrtec, the allergies will linger. My arms will still bleed and stay discolored. She coats my arms with cream that she claims will ease the pain. It doesn’t. And why should I believe her? Each of my forearms is wrapped in Saran Wrap, making them look like white lumpy salami.

   The doctor removes the ice cube to reveal a hive the size of a three-dimensional quarter with an obvious observation that: yes, anything cold causes me to break out in hives. No experiment necessary, you creep. I am not a lab rat.

   I exit with the bottom halves of my arms disfigured, a giant hive on my shoulder and my nose not quite empty; the infuriation of my allergies forever surviving in my skin.