You know what would be really tasty right now? Potato salad! Or lemon meringue pie. Maybe some cake. But alas! It is not meant to be, for I have been bestowed with the horrible scourge known as the egg allergy.
I’m no stranger to food allergies — a cashew hasn’t passed through my lips since age six — but I’m almost 30 and having new allergies just pop up is a bit weird, but here we are. I was just peachy until a couple of weeks ago when I scarfed down a scrambled egg Steven cooked up for me and I immediately felt the closing in of the throat and itchiness of the ears that usually has me checking the ingredient list for nuts. I have to pop a couple of Benadryl and end up sleeping it off for five hours. The next day, I take two bites of cake and the whole thing starts over again — what is this rubbish?
At the doctor’s office, they hem and haw a bit about if and when they’re going to do a skin test on me. They couldn’t do it that day since the Benadryl is still in my system, but, by golly, they can take blood from me! Great, I’m an excellent giver of blood, just don’t swab my throat. Deal? Deal.
So in walks the nurse to perform the vampiric service and she is the picture of nervousness. She meekly asks, “Do you have good veins?”
“I have great veins,” I reply. I have never had anyone miss on the first try with me, and I have had COPIOUS amounts of blood taken from me in my lifetime, with between being pregnant with Lydia and Auburn University Medical Center’s bloodthirsty ways. I bet I could take blood from myself. Lisa, if you’re still reading, you should stop now and continue after the Line of Happiness.
Meek Nurse scoots up to me and checks out my right arm, slightly bruised from a (successful) blood draw the previous day (strep throat issue). She goes to the (equally as good) left arm. “I think I’ll go get the pro,” she muses, and leaves the room.
In walks Pro Nurse, who had been fetched from her lunch. She also avoids the right arm and goes towards the left, pokes around for what seems a very long time, then starts thumping me, like she can’t find the veins that I can clearly see on my arm. As I watch in horror, she moves toward the left side of my arm, thumps there, and I can tell my her actions she seems to think she has found a vein that I know isn’t there. She swabs the area with alcohol.
Oh God.
She strikes, but all she finds is pain. She wiggles around the needle a bit (so THAT’s what people talk about) but no luck. She finally retreats, defeated, and I convince her to go for the exact same area that the strep throat people struck yesterday. She has success on the second round. Amazing.
A week later and I am still sporting the bruise from that unsuccessful little stunt.
AND, they lost that blood draw and had to do it again today. Successfully. The first time.
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Today I finally got the skin testing for the eggs, which told me what my throat and ears already did two weeks ago. Why is another matter. Like I said, it’s odd to suddenly strike up a food allergy as an adult. I seem to remember being told as a kid that I tested as a slight positive for egg once, so a decidedly temporary condition could be enhancing the allergy.
Since eggs are in vaccines, they did a test to see if I could tolerate the flu and H1N1 vaccines, but it’s a no-go for those, either. They were nice enough to give me a bottle Tamiflu and a “good luck!” 🙂
Here’s hoping my weird old body rights itself. Until then, I will definitely miss cookies, nougat, and chicken salad.
I totally understand! I became allergic to milk at the age of 24 and have no idea why. I am hoping it will go away one day!
OMG,OMG,OMG should’ve quit reading when you told me to. I had to get a steroid shot for my ick today and that was almost too much for me. I hate the egg thing for you, hope it magically disappears as quickly as it showed up!
Told you.
Your ‘ick’ isn’t of the swine variety, is it?