Cladosporium: that which makes the lining of your nose swell to twice its normal size, causing you to sneeze and gasp for air and clutch at Kleenex all through the night. (Sleep my child, and peace attend thee…)
Not since I lived in Ottawa have I experienced significant side effects from mould spores, which were (although not half as bad as those festering in that Leamington swamp) paralyzing this time of year. I spent entire Thanksgivings creeping about the house, trying to suck in remnants of second-hand air while staring wistfully at lumpy mashed potatoes and Yorkshire chicken.
Wikipedia states that “[c]ladosporium species are rarely pathogenic to humans, but have been reported to cause infections of the skin [yes] and toenails, as well as sinusitis [yes] and pulmonary infections [heading there]. If left untreated, these infections could turn into respiratory infections like pneumonia.
The airborne spores of Cladosporium species are significant allergens, and in large amounts they can severely affect asthmatics [yes] and people with respiratory diseases. Prolonged exposure may weaken the immune system. Cladosporium species produce no major mycotoxins of concern, but do produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with odours.”
At first I thought the fault lay with the annatto, beet juice and maltodextrin lacing the Blue Menu frozen fruit non-dairy smoothies that I’ve been eating this past week. After all, every chubby woman knows that the second she finds something low-fat and delectable, the tables are about to turn, heading straight toward and landing on her cheesehead, hard.
It isn’t difficult to imagine, however, how something that was once pureed and that can now, at room temperature, stand upright on a stick for forty minutes without melting, might have properties only pertinent to plastic factory physicists.
Okay, so I say all this allegedly, but trust me: I watched the remnants of one of those frozen treats as it attempted to melt yesterday, and in the meantime I baked seven pies, hand-washed nine loads of laundry, and cleaned the garage (and we don’t even have a garage).
Anyway, you can see how dizzy-headed and silly these spores have left me…sitting here on my swivel chair, slopping tea all over my favourite waffle shirt, the wind outside my window whipping pollen at an unfathomable rate, taunting me, laughing in my swollen face, mocking my skin-infected cheek and forehead, deriding my unhappy lymph-node neck and head.
For now then, at least until things settle down, I am going to have to bypass the daily headlines: Katy Perry Shows Cleavage on Sesame Street; Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore Tweet Photos of Themselves in Bed Together (is it me, or are headlines out-distancing their tweets?), and Lindsay Lohan Visits the Homeless (all of which are better understood as…Keeping Abreast of Desperate Young Girls; Twits Abound, and What I Did To Stave Off Parole).
No wonder my head hurts.
Achoo!
