So I'm officially too dumb to live...
So I'm arrogant and invincible except not really, and for my food-related asshattery I spent most of the night in the ER. Really long story ahead.
My church (also place of work) had a bake sale this past weekend. As I'm swamped with essays, assignments, tests and other school-related shenanigans I utterly failed to bake anything for it, and wound up spooning Pillsbury cookie dough onto a baking sheet about 10 minutes before I left for work. The point of all this is, this is a genuine cross-contaminating nightmare for those with food allergies. We bought some cookies because they were baked by my pastor, and I know he eats nuts and bakes with them, though the cookies in the baggy were oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. I knew that. I just thought that "it wouldn't happen to me" despite the fact that it very much has. This is my fifth or sixth time in Emergency because I keep eating things I shouldn't!
So about a minute and a half after finishing half an oatmeal raisin cookie (a little too generous with the vanilla, not enough baking soda, I can make a better cookie so it's not like it was even worth the whole fuck-a-monkey rigmarole) my mouth and throat started tingling like nobody's business. Me: FUCK. Dug in the medicine cabinet for some Benedryl, which is mysteriously absent and so no anti-histamines for the stupid, allergic child, and no Epi-Pens in the house since I used mine just this past summer (on a cruise! ate something I SHOULDN'T HAVE and spent the afternoon in the infirmary for it) and we never got around to replacing it. So as my mom is tearing around the house gathering things and generally berating me for being a dumbfuck, I calmly go to the bathroom and induce vomiting. Really, it's the only thing that stops it from getting that much worse. Under most circumstances (nausea, rollercoasters, motion sickness) I have a cast-iron stomach and it's really difficult to get me to throw up. But once you get something I'm allergic to into me, throwing up is easy-peasy. After disposing of my dinner, we drove to the local hospital, where it took about 12 minutes because we managed somehow to hit every stoplight.
This is the worst part of my story. For any of you working in hospitals in any capacity, I'm sorry for this, but as much as I appreciate and think that RNs and doctors and everyone working the night shift are saints, these three ladies were so stupid I would have yelled at them if I wasn't short of breath and worried that my throat was swelling shut. So I go to ER reception alone since my mom has to park the car, where the first woman sits me down and starts asking questions: "What's your name?" (she got it wrong), "Where do you live?" (do I look like I care? I'm struggling for breath here) "Do you have your health card?" (promptly given and NOT returned) and so when she sent me to the other receiving desk I had a slip of paper with Triage L2 on it and no health card. I'm sitting there doing yogic breathing to keep my brain alive, ask if she has my health card, get it back along with a paper slip with Triage L1 on it since I probably looked not that great... then my mom showed up. Both of us are polite and understanding of the system, and I know that this reaction is certainly not the worst I've ever had, but for godssake will you people just get off your asses and fucking give me the thrice-damned drugs already!? Fuck. I go back to reception with a handful of paperwork for my chart, whereupon the original looks at it and goes "Oh, but this is an L2, I gave her an L1 afterward... Now we have to do photocopies and more paperwork..." and as she grouses my mom just kind of looked at her and said, "Look, can we just give her something soon? The paperwork is not really my concern."
I was wheeled (could totally have gone under my own power, the volunteer who pushed me didn't know where she was going and was therefore slower than the volunteer directing her, who was in a WALKER) to an ER room where I had to change into a dreadfully drafty gown and sit and wait. The nurse who saw to me there was a lovely woman, the doctor who examined me was young and cute and very nice, and I was therefore given my epinephrine, Prednazone and Benedryl in short order. The hospital was quite busy last night; I stayed in that room for about an hour and a half (for those who don't know, epinephrine requires a 4 hour observation period) then was wheeled out into the hall. Waited there for a bit and was then moved to a little out of the way nook with big plastic chairs, a cute boy across the way, and NO PANTS. I really missed those. Even though yesterday, for no real reason, I was wearing one of my favourite bras and company panties, even though I had no accompanying plans for such company. Just grateful that I wasn't wearing a thong, gah.
Did I mention I have a paper due today? I have a doctor's note indicating where I was, so I'll be showing that to my professor if I don't manage to finish up by 4 PM. I studied for a while, since I had the wherewithal to grab my laptop before I left the house. And by the end of the night, cute boy was Phil and we'd exchanged numbers (though I think he might be around my sister's age, which makes me feel uncomfortably like robbing the cradle), a few pricks and pokes from the epi shot and my IV line, and I came home and slept.
Too fucking dumb to live - every time I swear I'm not going to take any more risks and eat nothing that I don't make myself or comes out of a nut-free package, and I fail. This time. I am sick to death of going to hospitals. I hate them.
I wish I wasn't allergic to so many things :(
My church (also place of work) had a bake sale this past weekend. As I'm swamped with essays, assignments, tests and other school-related shenanigans I utterly failed to bake anything for it, and wound up spooning Pillsbury cookie dough onto a baking sheet about 10 minutes before I left for work. The point of all this is, this is a genuine cross-contaminating nightmare for those with food allergies. We bought some cookies because they were baked by my pastor, and I know he eats nuts and bakes with them, though the cookies in the baggy were oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. I knew that. I just thought that "it wouldn't happen to me" despite the fact that it very much has. This is my fifth or sixth time in Emergency because I keep eating things I shouldn't!
So about a minute and a half after finishing half an oatmeal raisin cookie (a little too generous with the vanilla, not enough baking soda, I can make a better cookie so it's not like it was even worth the whole fuck-a-monkey rigmarole) my mouth and throat started tingling like nobody's business. Me: FUCK. Dug in the medicine cabinet for some Benedryl, which is mysteriously absent and so no anti-histamines for the stupid, allergic child, and no Epi-Pens in the house since I used mine just this past summer (on a cruise! ate something I SHOULDN'T HAVE and spent the afternoon in the infirmary for it) and we never got around to replacing it. So as my mom is tearing around the house gathering things and generally berating me for being a dumbfuck, I calmly go to the bathroom and induce vomiting. Really, it's the only thing that stops it from getting that much worse. Under most circumstances (nausea, rollercoasters, motion sickness) I have a cast-iron stomach and it's really difficult to get me to throw up. But once you get something I'm allergic to into me, throwing up is easy-peasy. After disposing of my dinner, we drove to the local hospital, where it took about 12 minutes because we managed somehow to hit every stoplight.
This is the worst part of my story. For any of you working in hospitals in any capacity, I'm sorry for this, but as much as I appreciate and think that RNs and doctors and everyone working the night shift are saints, these three ladies were so stupid I would have yelled at them if I wasn't short of breath and worried that my throat was swelling shut. So I go to ER reception alone since my mom has to park the car, where the first woman sits me down and starts asking questions: "What's your name?" (she got it wrong), "Where do you live?" (do I look like I care? I'm struggling for breath here) "Do you have your health card?" (promptly given and NOT returned) and so when she sent me to the other receiving desk I had a slip of paper with Triage L2 on it and no health card. I'm sitting there doing yogic breathing to keep my brain alive, ask if she has my health card, get it back along with a paper slip with Triage L1 on it since I probably looked not that great... then my mom showed up. Both of us are polite and understanding of the system, and I know that this reaction is certainly not the worst I've ever had, but for godssake will you people just get off your asses and fucking give me the thrice-damned drugs already!? Fuck. I go back to reception with a handful of paperwork for my chart, whereupon the original looks at it and goes "Oh, but this is an L2, I gave her an L1 afterward... Now we have to do photocopies and more paperwork..." and as she grouses my mom just kind of looked at her and said, "Look, can we just give her something soon? The paperwork is not really my concern."
I was wheeled (could totally have gone under my own power, the volunteer who pushed me didn't know where she was going and was therefore slower than the volunteer directing her, who was in a WALKER) to an ER room where I had to change into a dreadfully drafty gown and sit and wait. The nurse who saw to me there was a lovely woman, the doctor who examined me was young and cute and very nice, and I was therefore given my epinephrine, Prednazone and Benedryl in short order. The hospital was quite busy last night; I stayed in that room for about an hour and a half (for those who don't know, epinephrine requires a 4 hour observation period) then was wheeled out into the hall. Waited there for a bit and was then moved to a little out of the way nook with big plastic chairs, a cute boy across the way, and NO PANTS. I really missed those. Even though yesterday, for no real reason, I was wearing one of my favourite bras and company panties, even though I had no accompanying plans for such company. Just grateful that I wasn't wearing a thong, gah.
Did I mention I have a paper due today? I have a doctor's note indicating where I was, so I'll be showing that to my professor if I don't manage to finish up by 4 PM. I studied for a while, since I had the wherewithal to grab my laptop before I left the house. And by the end of the night, cute boy was Phil and we'd exchanged numbers (though I think he might be around my sister's age, which makes me feel uncomfortably like robbing the cradle), a few pricks and pokes from the epi shot and my IV line, and I came home and slept.
Too fucking dumb to live - every time I swear I'm not going to take any more risks and eat nothing that I don't make myself or comes out of a nut-free package, and I fail. This time. I am sick to death of going to hospitals. I hate them.
I wish I wasn't allergic to so many things :(