DIY History | Transcribe | Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries | Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 061

[note: Insert pg 72]. 72A. And where does hay fever fit into the picture you may very well inquire of this time? For just about these years I was beginning to be haunted by this malady in deadly earnest. If there had been attacks hither-to-fore they had been of sufficient mildness and of short enough duration to enable them to have escaped detection as such, and perhaps had been passed off as summer-colds. Colds were the established thing for me the year around, and there is not always much to differentiate the one from the other in outwardly appearance. Each summer season from this time onward brought with it sieges of hay fever. Thus days passed in abject misery. For who does not recognize the symptoms of swollen and reddened nose membranes, in which the dulled eyes and the ears might be involved. Who is not familiar with the running of the nose and eyes; the itching and the smarting? Who thereby affected, does not remember the sore membranes of the throat because of the mouth breathing when the nostrils were swollen shut so that no air could penetrate the regular passages? Who has not experienced that grasping at temporary relief and had the nasal corridors shrunken so as to permit a more normal breathing? This relief, unfortunately, is of much too short a duration. One of the most disturbing features about this ailment however, is the disturbance at night when the irritation causes breathing difficulties and sleeplessness [note: continue 72B].

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[note: Insert pg 72]. 72A. And where does hay fever fit into the picture you may very well inquire of this time? For just about these years I was beginning to be haunted by this malady in deadly earnest. If there had been attacks hither-to-fore they had been of sufficient mildness and of short enough duration to enable them to have escaped detection as such, and perhaps had been passed off as summer-colds. Colds were the established thing for me the year around, and there is not always much to differentiate the one from the other in outwardly appearance. Each summer season from this time onward brought with it sieges of hay fever. Thus days passed in abject misery. For who does not recognize the symptoms of swollen and reddened nose membranes, in which the dulled eyes and the ears might be involved. Who is not familiar with the running of the nose and eyes; the itching and the smarting? Who thereby affected, does not remember the sore membranes of the throat because of the mouth breathing when the nostrils were swollen shut so that no air could penetrate the regular passages? Who has not experienced that grasping at temporary relief and had the nasal corridors shrunken so as to permit a more normal breathing? This relief, unfortunately, is of much too short a duration. One of the most disturbing features about this ailment however, is the disturbance at night when the irritation causes breathing difficulties and sleeplessness [note: continue 72B].