allergy attack pattern: optical meltdown

first things first, i'm not going to address my radio silence just yet, but here's a little post for any of you logists still out there.
today TLK and i went to magnuson park with the dog because there is a killer off-leash dog park there. we've been a few times and it's fun to see all of the other dogs and watch dottie play with her kind. but today was a little different. summer has been in slow bloom and today was really the first fully warm and sunny day her in seattle. anyway you can imagine all of the plants in full bloom people everywhere enjoying the weather. it was resplendent.
then suddenly my eye starts itching. i'm thinking it's just a minor speck of dust or something that got in there and is just irritating me. after about 10 minutes of rubbing my uncomfortable eye is when the sneezing began. this wasn't your average sneeze, but an onslaught of mucusy fury the likes of which man has never before witnessed. TLK suggested we go during a lull in the sneezefest and i was just about to refuse when tears started randomly streaming down my cheeks. so we left.
TLK being the nurse that she is promptly says, "if your throat starts to close up let me know, because that's serious". here i am having the most violent allergic reaction of my lifetime and she nonchalantly says this about my throat. so of course immediately i start having to clear my throat a lot and have difficulty breathing. at this point we're on our way to the emergency room, but made a quick stop for some benedryl. traffic. i look in the rear view mirror and not only see that my eye are almost swollen shut, but that there are huge welts/hives all over my forehead and i have noticed that my entire body is itching at this point. in my mind i'm thinking about the sweet revenge i want to have on whatever plant or insect did this to me, but on the outside i'm kind of panicky and telling tracy that she should carry an epi-pen with her at all times in case of this sort of thing happening.
long story short-the benedryl kicked in shortly after, and all breathing returned to normal. we went home and i scratched myself to sleep.
the picture was taken about 5.5 hours after the allergy invasion and as you can see my eyes are still pretty swollen and red. and yes, that is a tear in my eye. i have been crying ever since this thing happened. you'd think that i could run out of tears, but not true. fortunately i can see now, and the hives have disappeared.