Mr. Chattering and I once went to a lively party, and suddenly, as if guided by a force much larger ourselves, everyone there started talking about allergies. Cockroach dust. Mushrooms. Mold in the house.

After a few minutes of this fascinating prattle, I turned to Mr. Chattering and gushed, “Oh, these are my people.” I felt so happy.

Actually, I was only super-allergic to everything when pregnant. I was that one in one hundred women who comes down with full-blown asthma in pregnancy. Rattling like a tea kettle in my 12th week, Mr. Chattering made me go to a hospital emergency room where they plied me with all varieties of chemicals for one full midnight shift. Then I escaped.

“I’ve got to put you on cortisone,” said my all-too-conventional allergist.

“I won’t take it,” I said.

“Your obstetrician and I believe that your not being able to breathe is worse for the baby than being medicated for a time.”

True, tough choice. This remark sent me on an alternative health odyssey that I won’t recommend to you here because I was still asthmatic enough in my eighth month to cough a rib out of place. But I was fixed that same day by a wonderful chiropractor we drove to visit in the midsts of a scary ice storm. Then, after our healthy baby boy was born, my allergies ebbed away (with the support of a homeopath, acupuncturist, and God’s love, I guess).

Anyway, this experience left me with a real fondness for people sensitive to the fluffiest dust bunny! I know what it is like when the body turns on itself. I know what it is to fight for every breath.