The Other Me

I am a calm person. If I was having a Heart Attack I think there's a good chance that the people around me would be unaware of it. Same deal if I were bleeding to death. (aside from red stuff oozing)

Whenever I encounter a physical problem I can here my Mother's voice saying "Oh, that's nothing to worry about." I tend not to take things too seriously. I walked on a broken foot for three days before someone convinced me to see a doctor.

Many years ago I started to get sick. I had a sudden onset of symptoms that made it hard for me to function. I was ingesting something that my body wasn't happy about, but I had no idea what it was. One minute I was fine the next I wasn't. My first symptom was heat, like a surge of electricity that ran through me up to my head. I would start to sweat, feel dizzy, nauseous, my mouth would get dry, and my nose would run. Then the shakes, so bad that when I tried to drink a glass of water it would spill. If I could make it to the ladies room I was prepared for anything. I felt fuzzy and weak, I did not want to be touched or spoken to. My sensitivity to everything peaked. When I checked my reflection in the mirror, it was ghostly. I could make it home, but not with out help. Usually it would exhaust me so that I would fall asleep sitting up, then wake sometime in the middle of the night. It lasted for hours. By morning I would feel as if I had been beaten up.

This continued for months, I slowly eliminated things from my diet and saw a slew of doctors. I was labeled anorexic because I had stopped eating so many various foods and lost so much weight. According to the experts, I was allergic to nothing.

My dad died from stomach cancer shortly after his fortieth birthday. I was forty and I was scared.

I started playing detective. With the help of some brainy science friends, we determined I had an allergy to Sulfites. A year later Sulfites were banned as a food preservative and made illegal. Wines were labeled if they contained Sulfites. I no longer had to fear eating out or going to a catered affair.

I had passed the age of forty and I was still here.

A few years ago I had dinner out with a friend and I felt the electrical surge rise to my brain. My heart sank. How could this be? It must be nerves, am I nervous? Well I sure as hell am now. It happened at least six more times. I guess I'm naive, because I kept blaming myself, after all, if the stuff is illegal how could it get into the food and make me so sick? I felt embarrassed, but I also felt like I was going to die. What do you say when you're not an alarmist? How do you make it sound as serious as you feel without causing worry? What do you do when you can barely function but want to appear normal? Geez, I don't want to be labeled a party pooper.

So, I act as normal as humanly possible. I say I don't feel so good (again). I worry people think I'm a hypochondriac, and then I get the hell home. The other me would stay all night, dance til dawn, and be the last one to leave. But that ain't happenin under these conditions. Truth is I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

I related my story to a friend. Without hesitation he said what I had been experiencing was Anaphylactic Shock. That sounds way too scary a thing to have gone through as many times as I had. People go to the hospital for that sort of thing. My throat never constricted and no other swelling occurs, maybe I just never ingested enough of the allergen. Maybe it wasn't Anaphylactic Shock, but it certainly is a shock to my system and to anyone who has witnessed it. I must admit there is a part of me that wants it to be.

Maybe I would take myself more seriously.