VOG 100, Karen 0

It's all relative. I mean, if you're gonna live on an island with a very active volcano, you're going to have to pay the price. Sometimes. It's kind of like having that auntie come to your home as a child. You know, the one who would head straight for you and pinch your cheeks. It's annoying, but it's inevitable. That's exactly what the Vog (Volcanic Fog) can be like. The lack of tradewinds invited the unwanted sulfur-laden haze, or laze, or pollution, whatever you want to call it, to become trapped and accumulate over East Hawaii, proving an overload on my sulfur allergy. I was fighting it to the point where it not only pinched me in the cheeks, but it spanked me a good one! My eyelids were nearly swollen shut, my lungs became so filled with mucus that I nearly stopped breathing (it was actually the first incident in my life where I went to inhale and NO air went into my body!), my nose was running like a fully turned on faucet, I began coughing uncontrollably, and my body began to fever. Did I mention I passed out? As if life isn't stressful enough, this was definitely not an opportune time, as my in-laws were only days away from arriving to attend my son's high school graduation. That meant the house needed to be company cleaned (sans my nornal ainokea attitude towards chores in general).
Despite a bleak outlook on any weather changes, the trades mercifully started to come back on Saturday and the air was relatively clear by today. That offered a bit of relief to my ultra-inflammed body parts. The wanted in-laws arrived safely, to a home that is relatively clean. All is now cheeky. Well, my bum still hurts. If that's the price I have to pay, I'll choose East Hawaii any day!