I had something odd and unpleasant happen yesterday.

I have a two-hour break between my morning classes, and in the second class I was giving an exam, so I needed no prep time. So I finished sorting through the LAST (thank goodness!) of the 20 soil samples. (This will become important later; I didn't realize its importance until this morning).

It was unnaturally warm and humid here yesterday. (And yet: no rain. Boo.)

While invigilating* the exam, I began to notice my chest feeling tight. I didn't worry too much at first - it happens sometimes when my allergies are bad and goes away almost immediately.

This time it didn't. It got progressively worse. I started to feel a bit light headed but by that time I was down to 6 scattered students so I felt I could sit without worrying about anyone being able to cheat (besides, I use "form A" and "form B" with cleverly scrambled-up questions; it may not defeat cheating 100% but it would make it harder, and thus, I hope, more recognizable by me).

I began to worry - sure, this is chest, which for me usually means lungs (or rather, bronchi), but there's other stuff in the chest. Like heart stuff.

Dear God, could I be having a heart attack? (I had no other symptoms - no tingling, numbness, fatigue, nausea - none of the other symptoms. Plus every doctor that's bothered to check my cardiovascular system has found no evidence of anything wrong).

So I sat there, willing the students to finish up, telling myself if it didn't get better I'd drive myself to the ER and be checked out.

The students finished. I hadn't keeled over yet so I decided (and yeah, this was probably stupid, except in retrospect it wasn't) that our local ER being what it is, unless I was actively dying, I'd probably be sitting there four 3-4 hours, so perhaps it would be wise to run home and get a book. (And I still wasn't convinced this was anything worse than bad allergies).

I walked in the door of my house.

Immediately my chest opened back up, the tightness and pain went away, and I could breathe normally again.

I should note my house was a good 10* cooler than my classroom building (seriously; my office over here reached 30* C yesterday afternoon) and considerably less humid (part of the caretaking of the piano involves keeping humidity in a narrow range and monitoring it).

So, it must have been asthma. And I realized this morning that bending over plates full of wet soil for two hours probably was the root cause of the problem. So I'm glad to be done with that.

The really weird thing, and what clinched it for me as being allergic-related? When I went back on campus to teach the soils lab (which my TA could have done in my absence were I sitting in the ER hooked up to a nebulizer or whatever), I developed really bad eczema on both my hands and my feet - I get allergic eczema once in a while, not often.

It's all quieted down now (thank goodness for a jewel-weed/lemongrass salve I had at home), but I still feel kind of "fragile," like a bad exposure to dust could set me off again.

I know I said my allergies were mostly an "annoyance" but once in a while they do rise above that and become a little scary. (And yeah, I took my meds this morning, I guess I have to take them for a while now, even though they cause sleep disturbances for me).

(*Yes, I know, "invigilating" is one of those "affectation" words but I like it better than "proctoring." "Invigilating" sounds Latinate and smooth, "proctoring" sounds more angular to me and rougher. Though I suppose "proctoring" also has Latinate roots (though one etymology lists it as coming from Middle English))