December 18, 2017       Live Christmas trees and surprise - asthma

         We had snow the weekend of December 9^th, and I didn’t bother getting my fake trees out of the shed due to the cold and the snow.  I expected the weather to break – but it stayed cold until midweek.

         I finally hauled in my big fake tree and my two small fake trees.  I imagine some of you are saying:

“PURIST – what is with you?” 

“You should have a real tree.  You live in Christmas Tree country”

“I am shocked, shocked – even disappointed.”

I hear you, but not everyone can tolerate a real tree.  I didn’t know this, but eventually my doctor figured it out.  I have asthma – low level now, except I am allergic to pine, or spruce – any live Christmas tree and pine scent and some other things as well.

         I found this out the hard way.  Every year for years, we would search for the perfect live tree, and bring it home and put it up and the next day I would come down with what I thought was the flu or a cold that would last for weeks on end.  One year, I had this flu or cold so bad my real tree didn’t come down until around Valentine’s Day because I still felt so sick.  Then, whatever this was – a cold or flu – it didn’t seem to really leave me until the leaves came on the trees in spring and I got outside to enjoy life again.

         This situation got exceeding worse each year.  I thought I was just run down rushing around at Christmas and caught the flu or a cold because everyone seems to catch something the weekend of Thanksgiving and then they pass it along to you at work in early December.

  In the fall of 2006, I had these awful coughing attacks at work and my employee watched me as I tried to catch my breath and sometimes I would dash outside into the cold air to try to catch my breath.  I coughed minutes at a time and tears would run down my cheeks.

         “You’ve got asthma . . .” my employee said to me.

         “Not possible, I swim laps at the college and it has a chlorine pool.”

         “I am telling you, my son has asthma and that is what you’ve got when you cough like that.”

         I pooh-poohed her and went on my way until I was in the middle of a telephone call with a client and I started to cough and I had to excuse myself and put the phone down.  Again, I grabbed my bottle of water, and rushed out into the cool air and I simply didn’t stop coughing.  After a few minutes, my employee advised the client I would call back and hung up my phone and by then I was sitting on the front steps of the office building try to compose myself – still coughing and gasping.

         “You are going to your doctor’s office this afternoon if I have to take you there myself.”

         I croaked, “Okay, okay . . .” 

I made an emergency appointment and eventually ended up having an asthma test at the hospital in a few days.

         I was so surprised – yes – asthma.  I had a houseful of carpeting and goose down comforters and goose down pillows and lots of upholstered furniture and a LIVE Christmas Tree, and a cat and dog, and I used Murphy’s oil soap and Pine Sol when I was cleaning and scented candles . . . .need I say more - for me the biggest culprit is pine scent. Anyone who knows anything about asthma knows there are triggers and I had more than enough triggers, but the live Christmas tree simply put the air quality in my home over the top.

         So yes, I have fake trees and I miss the hunt for the perfect live tree.  I notice them as I drive by the Christmas tree lots and part of me wants to stop and just walk around and finger them, and inhale their beautiful fragrance, but I know better.

         If you have a real tree for Christmas – please enjoy it, even the limb that is bent and shoved to the back or the shedding needles or the crooked trunk that makes the tree lean.  You are fortunate in more ways than you can know.