Say what?

I had my first appointment with the allergist today, to try to get to the bottom of the weird beach rash I came home with last month. Three hours, 56 tiny pin-pricks, and 23 intradermal injections later, the verdict was in.

The good news? I'm not allergic to shellfish. Or any fish, for that matter. They did individual pricks for tuna, catfish, trout, salmon, oyster, clam, scallops, lobster, crab, and shrimp, and none produced any reaction whatsoever.

The bad news? We have basically no idea what caused the prickly rash. She said it was probably a contact thing (i.e. I came into contact with something new and reacted to it, like sunscreen, lotion, detergent ... even though I would swear I didn't). It may very well never happen again, but if it does, they'll do a patch test on my back to see if anything obvious turns up.

And the God's-got-a-hilarious-sense-of-humor news? The things I am allergic to include your standard grasses, weeds, and a couple of trees. But the thing I'm most allergic to - and on a scale of 0-4, it scored a 4 - was none other than your average, ordinary, garden-variety ...







... wait for it ....









... house cat.

Yes, you read that right. Cats. Felines. As in, I've lived with cats my entire life. As in, I have six in my house at the moment and an additional three who stay outside. As in, I sleep with them and hold them and rub my face in their fur just about every day. Dr. Raschal says that living with cats has served as a sort of immunotherapy, or allergy shot, all on its own - through lifelong exposure to cats, I've developed my own sort of immunity. Which is sort of cool, as long as I always have cats. (And, really, does anyone out there want to put money on me not having a cat or two at any point in my life?)

Hilarious. And my arm still hurts.