trying to figure out how to untwist myself from various medical and psychological knots. any help and advice that anyone can offer would be fantastic so, I'm allergic to grass (among many, many other things) and every year around this time, that particular allergy causes some kind of sinus issue. (all of spring is spent taking at least 4 benadryl or 8 zyrtec a day and trying not to claw off my skin bc most of my allergic reactions are dermal, but early summer is always a whole different can of worms and I have no idea why) two years ago it was a full-mouth toothache bc apparently the roots of your teeth can poke into your sinuses sometimes? wtf? yeah. but this year, like last year and most other years, it was an ear infection. which kind of makes sense bc swollen sinuses trap moisture behind the ear drum and then misery happens. and of course, misery has been happening on and off for the last two weeks. has mostly tapered off, but in the evenings I'm still getting really feverish, to the point of being dizzy and brain-foggy. (I would have gone to the dr earlier than today, but last week I used up my spoons being an elections judge @___@) anyways, saw the dr this morning and she said that the ear infection was mostly gone, prescribed an antibiotic but said not to use it if I was feeling better. (different words but that was the gist) so I haven't picked up the rx, and I'm wondering if I should take it when I do? bc rn I'm really dizzy and it's taken both advil and tylenol and a bottle of water to get to the point where I could concentrate enough to type this. edit: decided to take the antibiotics, as another cold seems to be going around my family and I got hit w the whole fucking package of symptoms also, will be calling to schedule an appointment w an allergist on monday. does anyone know what I should expect? I know I need to do an allergy test, but I think I'd have to be not-benadryl'd for that and I really can't do that at this point in the year. does anyone have any idea what to expect as far as allergy treatments?
bumping this and expanding this to my catch-all "grim doesn't know how to people" thread bc I need help w some v basic things that I should have learned along the way but didn't bc family of brainweird and emotional abuse @_______@ so, for bg info, I was hit by a car when I was 14, five days after moving from Texas to Baltimore. broke my ankle and pelvis, had to have surgery and a cast, and the dog I was walking when I was hit died. all in all, v traumatic. but at least I got out of my first semester of PE in high school. almost ten years later, I'm super anxious about learning how to drive, which I absolutely need to do bc I live in a semi-rural area and am at the mercy of my family (which is significantly better on the emotional abuse front than it was when I was a kid, but still) but I come from a family of bad drivers, and yesterday I was in the car w my sister and brother-in-law and one of our tires blew out in the middle of a v busy freeway. we had to pull over, but we couldn't make it to the shoulder bc we were right at the merge from another highway, and we ended up on the median w cars rushing by on both sides. I'm v v v lucky my brother-in-law managed to take care of trading out the flat for a donut, bc while I do know how to change a tire I physically could not move at that point bc there were cars rushing by on both sides. but even w all of this happening, I know I still need to learn how to drive. I have a few leads on adult driver's ed up on my computer, but every time I think about acting on it I panic and end up doing anything besides that. x.X any advice?
heya, i am not good at advice for things like this, but... i mean, it's totally comprehensible that you'd have trauma about cars, given the history, so. whee.
well, that's good to know at least. but why do I get the feeling that this is going to be one of those things that isn't going to get better w/o serious effort on my part?
also, a bit of context might be necessary for the "family of bad drivers" bit above you know that scene from the Dukes of Hazard, where the two guys jump a car off a mound of dirt? my grandpa once accidentally did that off a pile of logs at a construction site near the bayou by our house, not ten minutes after dropping me off. (we're all still surprised that grandma didn't kill him for that one, since she was in the car w him) and while this one was a bit extreme even for grandpa, that's still the general tone of the shenanigans that happen w my family and cars and on a non-driving note, there was also the time my dad and I were carjacked near our house when I was eight. and the time Barbara Bush nearly ran over my brother when he was backing his car out of the driveway (we lived near Bush Sr's gated community, and my siblings could tell it was her driving bc of the secret service guy in the seat next to her) so uh yeah, that's all before mentioning the fact that my mom regularly hits 90 mph w/o even noticing, my sister considers driving to be "rage time" in her own words and I live in a city that's infamous for terrible driving
I also have crazy anxiety about driving, because I've been in too many accidents. I'm 26 and still don't drive. So, uh, I'd also welcome advice, but in the meantime: if biking is a thing you can do, it is great and also freedom. And it shouldn't hurt (like, some settling-in pain in the first three days is normal, but not afterwards) no matter what any bike dudes say, and swapping out bike seats is easy and can stop pain. I mean, like, may or may not be super safe with all the bad drivers, but it is an option.
I live outside a v big city that has the shittiest public transport I have ever encountered x.X also it's on the gulf coast, where we don't breathe the air so much as drink it. (b/w the humidity and the oil refineries, nearly a quarter of our population has asthma) maybe if I moved in w my mom in town, but that's the worst possible option bc I already tried living alone w her and it nearly devolved to a murder-suicide thing
