The middle of May to the middle of June is a miserable time for me. 

Hi, my name is Shane and I have Hay Fever.

I didn’t always have allergies. I was outside all the time as a kid and I don’t ever remember sneezing for 5 weeks in the beginning of summer. (I did, however, have a bout with chicken pox when I was 15, but that’s another uninteresting story entirely.)

No, I remember my allergies culminating somewhere around the summer between my 21st and 22nd birthdays. My family was visiting Europe for about 15 days. Alli and I had been together about 6 months by this point and this was, by far, the longest amount of time we’d spent apart.

Traveling Europe in your early 20’s with your family is a lot different than traveling it in your early 30’s with your wife. It’s less romantic to say the least. So when I found out we were staying in a big chateau outside of the city of Le Mans (we were in the city to see part of the 24-hour endurance race), I was unaffected.

Until I got a whiff of the pollen. My eyes blew up and my nose was running like crazy. I sneezed every 30 seconds or so. Since we were in a foreign country where English was limited and I hated already, I was completely miserable. I’m fairly convinced that my premature cataracts in my eyes are a direct result of the eye trauma I received by rubbing and itching them too much in that awful day.

It was a Sunday in a small town in Southern France. Fortunately, we were in a small town, because the people who ran the chateau contacted the pharmacy in town and they got me a prescription without any fuss at all. Some French eyedrops and pills and I was a little better.

Since that trip, my allergies get worse every season. I’ve started trying to get a shot at the beginning of the season from my physician to help alleviate the symptoms and I take OTC Zyrtec, but that has done very little for me this year. In fact, the most effective drug I’ve taken has been plain old Benadryl. It’s the only thing that has allowed me to get through the yard work. Now, if I’m spending more than 5 minutes outside, I pop one of those little Benadryls and it seems to help.

The start of warm weather signals the start of allergy season for me and it’s a huge reason as to why I loathe summer so much. Not only is it just too hot, but it makes me all puffy and runny. And I don’t like that.

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