Very often, it’s small and rather insignificant details in life that shape lives. One would think that you could simply avoid something as small as, say, an aversion to bright or rapidly flashing lights. Unfortunately, these things are not as simple as they sound.
When I was young, around the age of eight or nine, we were having a July 4th barbeque. There were tables set out on the back lawn of a friend’s house, overlooking the Mississippi River from a New Orleans suburb. Dusk was rapidly approaching and everyone had eaten rather well, pigging out on hot dogs and hamburgers and barbeque chicken and who knows what else. We were all picking out various little desserts for ourselves. I had an innocent cookie in the shape, and color, of the Old Glory. Then I settled back to watch the show.
Fireworks exploded loudly in the sky over the river in rosettes of vibrant color that reflected off the water and into our eyes. Brilliant reds lit up the sky, making the river of mud look like it was on fire. Then blues mingled and created purple before holding their own in the sky, outshining all the stars and making us feel, for a moment, that we were underwater. Then magnesium flares went up and exploded in a blinding flash of white, coupled with a loud boom that made me feel a little uncomfortable. This discomfort lasted longer than the flare or the noise.
My mouth started to water for reasons I couldn’t understand. My stomach was roiling. I felt like I was going to be sick. So I quickly ran off to the side. My dad saw me running and followed, curious and concerned. There he saw, after some violent convulsions, a mess that, in some places, was in similar colors to the fireworks we had just seen. I was gagging on a dry and scratchy throat while my limbs shook.
You’d think that something as simple as, say, an allergy to nuts would be easy to avoid.
That night we learned I was allergic to nuts. Seeing as allergies can be rather dangerous, with my mom’s problem with the iodine in shellfish leading to anaphylactic shock, I was quickly rushed off to an allergy specialist to learn that I was allergic to all nuts. If it grows on a bush or a tree and is labeled a ‘nut’, I’m allergic to it. I’m not sure why. No, peanuts are not involved. But since peanuts rub shoulders with real nuts, I usually don’t have them either. The allergist’s scratch-test raised big welts on my body to prove it.
I told you that story to tell you another story.
When I was sixteen I was enjoying a Valentine’s Day with my family. It was tradition, and had been for years, that mom and dad went to chocolate shops around the city to build custom baskets of sweets for all the kids in the family. My sister was mildly lactose intolerant at the time, so she got special chocolate that didn’t involve milk. My brother had attention deficit disorder, so he got a lack of sugar in order to not interact with his medicine. And I, the one allergic to nuts, had to get very special candy that we were sure wasn’t made with nuts. It was a bit of a pain, but it made every 14th of February special, since my candy was custom picked and didn’t come right out of a heart-shaped box.
This holiday my mom went out alone to get the chocolate, going to a nearby store we all loved to get it. As always, she specifically asked the clerk to pack chocolate that didn’t include nuts, even going so far as to specially request chocolate that didn’t come in contact with machinery that did. The clerk nodded and packed a heart-shaped box for her, which had my name stamped on it moments later. Content that she had done her job, that I wouldn’t have to worry about praying to the porcelain god this holiday, she bustled back and got things ready.
The day went by well and happily and we got our chocolate. We ate pieces together, looked over various little trinkets mom had acquired for each of us, like a pen for me (an avid collector) and a stuffed animal for my sister. The day passed and we all went to sleep. All but me, who, being an insomniac, stayed up to read.
Craving chocolate, I picked up my box and opened it, looking for a likely candidate for my enjoyment. An oblong piece caught my eye and was quickly selected. As was my custom, just in case, I took a knife and cut it in half, looking for pieces of nuts inside. This came from events where I had eaten a chocolate I was assured was safe only to find nuts inside that the clerk was unaware of. Inside was a purple crème of some sort. Having done my check, and knowing the chocolate was safe, I ate it happily and went back to reading.
Twenty minutes later, the warning signs came. Sufferers of migraines say that they have auras that precede their migraines. Signs that tell them the headache is on the way. Sometimes it’s a momentary case of dyslexia, or perhaps an equivalent for speaking. There may be momentary spots of blindness, or a quick burst of heat in a cold room. When they feel these auras, they know the headache is coming, so they can quickly pop some medicine to ‘head it off at the pass’.
Fortunately for me, my allergies have auras too. Unfortunately, they don’t come with a nice way to stop the reaction.
My tongue felt like it was swelling, filling my mouth up. My mouth suddenly felt dry, making me lick my lips, my teeth… Before I noticed that, even though it felt dry and a little scratchy, my mouth was watering. These were my auras, and they meant I was going to be having some bathroom fun in a few minutes. So I ran to the bathroom and waited.
For ten minutes I drooled into the toilet, waiting. And just when I thought it was going to happen, those convulsions came. I threw up, and violently. I’m sure you don’t want details but, for those that have never had the bad fortune to have this sort of thing happen, vomiting isn’t fun, and there’s very few ways to make it better. This is especially true of the vomit decides to come out the wrong way. This happened here, and I must say my nose really stung at the time.
Fifteen minutes after it started, the heaving stopped. I had no more to give. I was shaking horribly. My body itched all over, especially in my throat, which hurt and scratched every time I swallowed. I went and got some water, which always tends to help before and after. Then, knowing I’d feel better after a shower, I disrobed and hopped in.
Another minor note about me that helps the following make more sense. Aside from a predilection for migraines and an unfortunate allergy to nuts, I also enjoy uncommon bouts of asthma. Usually these come after extensive exercise, or not-so-extensive exercise on cold days. But sometimes, when it’s hot, or when there’s a lot of steam, I’ll have another attack.
So when I was getting out of the shower and had a hard time breathing, I figured this was the problem. I took my time drying off, knowing it would either go away on its own or would succumb to a quick puff on my inhaler. But it was quickly growing harder to breathe and I found myself unconsciously bending over to make it easier. It was also becoming difficult, and painful, to swallow. I only actually noticed this when I was bent ninety degrees at the hips and still needing to bend more. Breath wasn’t coming easily, and swallowing wasn’t happening at all. Drooling is no fun, especially when there’s no alternative.
I quickly ran to my mother’s room down the hall, thinking for only half a second to put on some boxers to preserve some sort of modesty. Being naked isn’t important when breathing is nigh impossible. I switched on the overhead lights in her room and shook her awake. I should point out that this is normally a bad idea, as she wakes with a startled gasp and yells at me if I happen to do this with no good reason.
My voice was breathy and panicky as I spoke. Try speaking while breathing in. You may have some idea what this sounded like. “Mhom. Cahn’t breathe! Nhuts!” I was bent over, as if I was trying to catch my breath from jogging. “Cahll nihne ohne ohne.” Every syllable was breathy, like someone with a gravelly voice trying to whisper. I could have done well doing voice-acting for monsters in cartoons, if I hadn’t likely been dying at the time.
I have to give credit to my mother with this. She took one look at me that lasted all of two seconds before she not only knew what happened, she knew what she needed to do. Her hand was already on the phone by the time I had finished my first sentence, she was already on the phone with the operator by the second. The ambulance was already on their way. Then she sprinted downstairs, found some Benadryl, and got back to me. Luckily it was children’s and could be dribbled down my throat. I tried to swallow, but that brought on an explosion of pain that made me clench my eyes until I could almost see red fireworks in front of them in the darkness.
My mom and I moved to the bathroom again. She got me into pajama bottoms and then had me sit there. I was bent over again, as if I was doing stretches in gym class. There was something that was making it impossible to breathe, and only with my mouth wide open and bending over could I get it out of the way. When she heard the sirens of the fire truck pulling onto our street, my mother quickly ran out to flag them down.
The EMTs rushed in. One questioned my mother on the going-ons. One quickly got my heart-rate and a few other measurements that the hospital would need. Then came the new guy.
You may ask how I knew this guy was new at the job. It wasn’t his clothing, because he was dressed as all of them. It wasn’t how he acted, he was as professional as the rest with the same no-nonsense attitude. No, it was what he did that told me he was new.
See, allergic reactions can be countered by epinephrine, the active ingredient in Benadryl. I had already had a dose, but it was a dose meant for children. I needed more concentrated stuff. And those lovely men had exactly what I needed in that regard. The new guy had a needle filled with the stuff. He had me put my right arm out, lightly crooked. Then he stabbed for a vein.
Now, I know I have good veins. I’ve been told so by many nurses over the years, especially when I was in the hospital, and most especially when I was chatting with them when I was with my grandmother and one of us was getting stuck. I’m pasty white from many hours in front of the computer, so no tan is making those blue lines hard to find. I also have large veins. So, normally, my injections are rather easy. Not this time.
He stabbed, then there was a minor curse. He missed. So he pulled the needle out, held my arm steady, and stabbed again. There was another curse as he, apparently, missed a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. Altogether, this EMT stabbed me six times with that needle trying to get epinephrine into my veins. By the time he actually pushed the plunger down, there was a large blue bruise on my arm where I had been stabbed.
“Sorry, had some trouble there.” Said the EMT to me when he was done.
I couldn’t talk at that point, the allergic reaction was so severe. But inwardly, I was laughing. I was laughing hard. Had I control over my throat, I would have shrugged him off, telling him that saving my life is worth more than avoiding tiny pinpricks of pain or a bruise that would fade in a few hours. He got a sympathetic look from me instead.
They got me on a stretcher and brought me down the stairs, each bump painful for me. Then they got me out onto the front walk where, finally, the ambulance had arrived. The paramedics had been prepped and told all the information they needed. They already had the doors open for me to be brought in.
Epinephrine, it should be noted, is known for a few things. First, it’s excellent at stemming an allergic reaction, or delaying it long enough for hospitalization. It’s also known, jokingly, as a coma inducer. When it is actively countering an allergic reaction, and possibly when it isn’t, it tends to make you drowsy. And if you fall asleep, you stay asleep for quite a while.
I knew this about the drug, but I was having trouble staving off the drowsiness as they got me into the ambulance. The red and blue lights on top of the car were hurting my eyes with their brightness. Inside it wasn’t much better, the white cab-lights shining directly at me. And I had to keep my eyes open lest I fall asleep, and that would, I thought, lead to me suffocating. So I sat up and looked over at the man who would accompany me across the next fifteen miles.
This guy must have been new too. See, the EMTs are particularly good at getting information such as your address and phone number when they first arrive. Just in case news has to be delivered to the family as well as to speed up looking up records on the way to the hospital. They EMTs then give this information to the paramedics as you’re transferred over. It’s a great system that makes getting to the hospital faster when the ambulance actually arrives. But this guy didn’t get the memo about what you’re supposed to do while you’re waiting for the patient to get in.
He was actually asking me for my phone number! I was sitting there, bent over, wheezing and gasping for breath. Barely able to keep my body oxygenated, much less speak, and he wanted me to give him personal information! He was so insistent that I actually began ‘signing’ the phone number to him. That is, holding up a number of fingers for each digit so he could figure it out. He was a quick learner, though, as, after the phone number, he decided to stop bugging me while we were on our trip.
The hospital was too bright for me initially. That sterile white light that was everywhere hurt my eyes. I was also slightly drugged and drowsy, so this had something to do with it. I was inwardly singing praises about the nurses and doctors as, seeing this was an actual emergency, they eschewed the normally ******** and got me into a room and onto a straight epinephrine drip immediately. While this would help me immensely, it also made it much harder to stay awake.
More than that, they bed they had me on was bent at roughly a one hundred and twenty degree angle. Given that my breathing only seemed to work if I was bent over, with my face looking in the direction of the ground, this was bad. Looking at the ceiling meant blocked passageways. I quickly got up and swallowed by accident as I did. More pain this time, as if something was trying to get ripped off. It was another blood-based fireworks show in my clenched eyes. Almost like being at that Fourth of July all over again. Moreover, this clenching put me close to passing out. And while I’m normally not afraid of much, I was deathly afraid of falling asleep.
It didn’t take long for the doctors to get to me. Either I was a priority case that night or there wasn’t much for them to do. Either way, a man came in and sat on the bed with me.
“What you’re experiencing now is anaphylactic shock. It’s kind of an extreme allergic reaction.” He said. Seeing that I didn’t understand, he continued. “Your allergies have made bits of your throat swell up, cutting off oxygen. Your uvula, the thing in the back of your neck, is also swollen and is blocking the airways. That’s why you’re leaning forwards; to swing it away. The IV drip will help fix that. Just relax and let the medicine do its work.”
That explanation didn’t help me much, but I now knew what was going on. So I let myself fall back, finding it easier to breathe already. And, apparently, fell asleep, since I lost track of time. Sometime later I had the same doctor waking me up. This time, he looked a little uncomfortable.
“This is a bit embarrassing to ask, but I thought I should try. See, your uvula is roughly the size of a grapefruit at this point, and we’ve never seen one swell that big before.”
For a moment there I thought about how great this comment would be when taken out of context. I really should go use that as a pick-up line. “And the doctors told me they’ve never seen parts of the anatomy swell to quite that size!”
The doctor coughed into his hand and continued. “Now, we have some medical students here, and I was wondering if you’d mind letting them see for their studies.”
Not only had I become a pincushion this night, now I was a circus sideshow! Still, I couldn’t complain, both literally and metaphorically. This guy was saving my life, the least I could do was become a textbook example. Besides, it might provide some fame for me.
The med students paraded in and looked. They ooh’d and ah’d at me before filing out once more. And at about that point, I suppose I fell asleep.
I woke with a fright. I had fallen asleep! That could mean death! I quickly reached up and rubbed at my neck, swallowed again reflexively. It still hurt, by not as much. It was then I noticed that I was in a different room. Out of the ER and into one of the normal rooms. I was still hooked up, but I seemed to be fine. It seemed that my emergency visit was over, for the most part. And I was, as far as I could tell, no worse for the wear.
On my way out of the hospital, a few hours later, a doctor caught up to me. He told me, as he handed me some of their information packets, that they were rather lucky my mom reacted so quickly. My allergy was so advanced that they were unsure if I was going to make it, and they feared they wouldn’t be able to do so if it ever happened again. This was major food for thought at the time.
Then again, now I live six blocks from the hospital as opposed to fifteen miles.
Life changed a little with the addition of a potentially deadly allergy. Nowadays I have to carry epipens with me, these little needles-in-a-can that stab you when you jab them into your leg and inject some potent meds. Not enough to stop the reaction, but enough to delay your death so the medics can arrive. My current batch are expired, but mom keeps on telling me that expired doesn’t mean much with medicine. I’m not sure she understands that I’m worried because it’s my life on the line, not hers.
Not long ago I learned that epipens apparently grow more potent with time, and ones as expired as mine were are deadly. Isn't learning fun?
I also have to watch what I eat. And with the FDA requiring any product made on equipment that also processes nuts to have a sticker saying as much, there’s a lot of food I have to worry about touching. Chocolate, of course, but when I have to worry about bread, I get a little irritated. Every so often I’ll indulge and risk it. I’d rather die eating ice cream than any other way, I think.
There is some good that came out of this. A long and fun story to tell, a few humorous jokes that came out of it. And, most importantly, now that my uvula has been stretched to gargantuan sizes, I can touch it with my tongue whenever I want. It makes a great trick at parties.
Spelling and Grammar (0-5): 5/5. Very good. There really wasn’t anything I could nitpick too much about.
Characterization (0-10): 8/10. See, here’s a problem. You mentioned earlier that would be nonfiction. I assume the narrator is you and that you’re recounting a very bad experience with your allergy. And it’s a well-told, interesting tale. I’m just not sure how to rate you as a character, nor your mother and the medical personnel, since they’re real people and not characters. I hope I’ve managed to judge this fairly, but I will say that it was difficult.
Plot and Structure (0-10): 8/10. The structure was good. I don’t know that an anecdote has a plot like a traditional story would, but the events were logical and easy to follow.
Style (0-10): 9/10. Very engaging, observational, humorous at times, and easy to read. Well done.
Creativity (0-10): 8/10. Here’s another problem: how to assign a creativity score for a true story. Is it creative when you don’t have to make up the details? Ultimately, I decided that, while you might be telling us a true story, putting it the form you did, and making it a good read, definitely requires creativity.
Overall: 41/50. Normally 43, minus 2 points for being late.
The whole story was one big characterization, so here is where you’re going to earn the most points. You definitely created a sympathetic character that was unfortunately born with a plethora of different health problems.
Plot and Structure (6):
This story really wasn’t much for plot. A series of events that reveal his traits isn’t necessarily a plot. You do have a set of individual scenes but that’s all, no goal and the only real dialogue is of the doctors.
Style (8):
You have great thing going breaking up each individual idea into paragraphs. It made it very easy to read and liked that a lot, along with the good descriptions only where it was necessary. It wasn’t perfect but I did like it.
Creativity (8):
Yeah it’s pretty interesting… one person having all these disorders and how it affects their life. Good job.
When I was young, around the age of eight or nine, we were having a July 4th barbeque. There were tables set out on the back lawn of a friend’s house, overlooking the Mississippi River from a New Orleans suburb. Dusk was rapidly approaching and everyone had eaten rather well, pigging out on hot dogs and hamburgers and barbeque chicken and who knows what else. We were all picking out various little desserts for ourselves. I had an innocent cookie in the shape, and color, of the Old Glory. Then I settled back to watch the show.
Fireworks exploded loudly in the sky over the river in rosettes of vibrant color that reflected off the water and into our eyes. Brilliant reds lit up the sky, making the river of mud look like it was on fire. Then blues mingled and created purple before holding their own in the sky, outshining all the stars and making us feel, for a moment, that we were underwater. Then magnesium flares went up and exploded in a blinding flash of white, coupled with a loud boom that made me feel a little uncomfortable. This discomfort lasted longer than the flare or the noise.
My mouth started to water for reasons I couldn’t understand. My stomach was roiling. I felt like I was going to be sick. So I quickly ran off to the side. My dad saw me running and followed, curious and concerned. There he saw, after some violent convulsions, a mess that, in some places, was in similar colors to the fireworks we had just seen. I was gagging on a dry and scratchy throat while my limbs shook.
You’d think that something as simple as, say, an allergy to nuts would be easy to avoid.
That night we learned I was allergic to nuts. Seeing as allergies can be rather dangerous, with my mom’s problem with the iodine in shellfish leading to anaphylactic shock, I was quickly rushed off to an allergy specialist to learn that I was allergic to all nuts. If it grows on a bush or a tree and is labeled a ‘nut’, I’m allergic to it. I’m not sure why. No, peanuts are not involved. But since peanuts rub shoulders with real nuts, I usually don’t have them either. The allergist’s scratch-test raised big welts on my body to prove it.
I told you that story to tell you another story.
When I was sixteen I was enjoying a Valentine’s Day with my family. It was tradition, and had been for years, that mom and dad went to chocolate shops around the city to build custom baskets of sweets for all the kids in the family. My sister was mildly lactose intolerant at the time, so she got special chocolate that didn’t involve milk. My brother had attention deficit disorder, so he got a lack of sugar in order to not interact with his medicine. And I, the one allergic to nuts, had to get very special candy that we were sure wasn’t made with nuts. It was a bit of a pain, but it made every 14th of February special, since my candy was custom picked and didn’t come right out of a heart-shaped box.
This holiday my mom went out alone to get the chocolate, going to a nearby store we all loved to get it. As always, she specifically asked the clerk to pack chocolate that didn’t include nuts, even going so far as to specially request chocolate that didn’t come in contact with machinery that did. The clerk nodded and packed a heart-shaped box for her, which had my name stamped on it moments later. Content that she had done her job, that I wouldn’t have to worry about praying to the porcelain god this holiday, she bustled back and got things ready.
The day went by well and happily and we got our chocolate. We ate pieces together, looked over various little trinkets mom had acquired for each of us, like a pen for me (an avid collector) and a stuffed animal for my sister. The day passed and we all went to sleep. All but me, who, being an insomniac, stayed up to read.
Craving chocolate, I picked up my box and opened it, looking for a likely candidate for my enjoyment. An oblong piece caught my eye and was quickly selected. As was my custom, just in case, I took a knife and cut it in half, looking for pieces of nuts inside. This came from events where I had eaten a chocolate I was assured was safe only to find nuts inside that the clerk was unaware of. Inside was a purple crème of some sort. Having done my check, and knowing the chocolate was safe, I ate it happily and went back to reading.
Twenty minutes later, the warning signs came. Sufferers of migraines say that they have auras that precede their migraines. Signs that tell them the headache is on the way. Sometimes it’s a momentary case of dyslexia, or perhaps an equivalent for speaking. There may be momentary spots of blindness, or a quick burst of heat in a cold room. When they feel these auras, they know the headache is coming, so they can quickly pop some medicine to ‘head it off at the pass’.
Fortunately for me, my allergies have auras too. Unfortunately, they don’t come with a nice way to stop the reaction.
My tongue felt like it was swelling, filling my mouth up. My mouth suddenly felt dry, making me lick my lips, my teeth… Before I noticed that, even though it felt dry and a little scratchy, my mouth was watering. These were my auras, and they meant I was going to be having some bathroom fun in a few minutes. So I ran to the bathroom and waited.
For ten minutes I drooled into the toilet, waiting. And just when I thought it was going to happen, those convulsions came. I threw up, and violently. I’m sure you don’t want details but, for those that have never had the bad fortune to have this sort of thing happen, vomiting isn’t fun, and there’s very few ways to make it better. This is especially true of the vomit decides to come out the wrong way. This happened here, and I must say my nose really stung at the time.
Fifteen minutes after it started, the heaving stopped. I had no more to give. I was shaking horribly. My body itched all over, especially in my throat, which hurt and scratched every time I swallowed. I went and got some water, which always tends to help before and after. Then, knowing I’d feel better after a shower, I disrobed and hopped in.
Another minor note about me that helps the following make more sense. Aside from a predilection for migraines and an unfortunate allergy to nuts, I also enjoy uncommon bouts of asthma. Usually these come after extensive exercise, or not-so-extensive exercise on cold days. But sometimes, when it’s hot, or when there’s a lot of steam, I’ll have another attack.
So when I was getting out of the shower and had a hard time breathing, I figured this was the problem. I took my time drying off, knowing it would either go away on its own or would succumb to a quick puff on my inhaler. But it was quickly growing harder to breathe and I found myself unconsciously bending over to make it easier. It was also becoming difficult, and painful, to swallow. I only actually noticed this when I was bent ninety degrees at the hips and still needing to bend more. Breath wasn’t coming easily, and swallowing wasn’t happening at all. Drooling is no fun, especially when there’s no alternative.
I quickly ran to my mother’s room down the hall, thinking for only half a second to put on some boxers to preserve some sort of modesty. Being naked isn’t important when breathing is nigh impossible. I switched on the overhead lights in her room and shook her awake. I should point out that this is normally a bad idea, as she wakes with a startled gasp and yells at me if I happen to do this with no good reason.
My voice was breathy and panicky as I spoke. Try speaking while breathing in. You may have some idea what this sounded like. “Mhom. Cahn’t breathe! Nhuts!” I was bent over, as if I was trying to catch my breath from jogging. “Cahll nihne ohne ohne.” Every syllable was breathy, like someone with a gravelly voice trying to whisper. I could have done well doing voice-acting for monsters in cartoons, if I hadn’t likely been dying at the time.
I have to give credit to my mother with this. She took one look at me that lasted all of two seconds before she not only knew what happened, she knew what she needed to do. Her hand was already on the phone by the time I had finished my first sentence, she was already on the phone with the operator by the second. The ambulance was already on their way. Then she sprinted downstairs, found some Benadryl, and got back to me. Luckily it was children’s and could be dribbled down my throat. I tried to swallow, but that brought on an explosion of pain that made me clench my eyes until I could almost see red fireworks in front of them in the darkness.
My mom and I moved to the bathroom again. She got me into pajama bottoms and then had me sit there. I was bent over again, as if I was doing stretches in gym class. There was something that was making it impossible to breathe, and only with my mouth wide open and bending over could I get it out of the way. When she heard the sirens of the fire truck pulling onto our street, my mother quickly ran out to flag them down.
The EMTs rushed in. One questioned my mother on the going-ons. One quickly got my heart-rate and a few other measurements that the hospital would need. Then came the new guy.
You may ask how I knew this guy was new at the job. It wasn’t his clothing, because he was dressed as all of them. It wasn’t how he acted, he was as professional as the rest with the same no-nonsense attitude. No, it was what he did that told me he was new.
See, allergic reactions can be countered by epinephrine, the active ingredient in Benadryl. I had already had a dose, but it was a dose meant for children. I needed more concentrated stuff. And those lovely men had exactly what I needed in that regard. The new guy had a needle filled with the stuff. He had me put my right arm out, lightly crooked. Then he stabbed for a vein.
Now, I know I have good veins. I’ve been told so by many nurses over the years, especially when I was in the hospital, and most especially when I was chatting with them when I was with my grandmother and one of us was getting stuck. I’m pasty white from many hours in front of the computer, so no tan is making those blue lines hard to find. I also have large veins. So, normally, my injections are rather easy. Not this time.
He stabbed, then there was a minor curse. He missed. So he pulled the needle out, held my arm steady, and stabbed again. There was another curse as he, apparently, missed a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. Altogether, this EMT stabbed me six times with that needle trying to get epinephrine into my veins. By the time he actually pushed the plunger down, there was a large blue bruise on my arm where I had been stabbed.
“Sorry, had some trouble there.” Said the EMT to me when he was done.
I couldn’t talk at that point, the allergic reaction was so severe. But inwardly, I was laughing. I was laughing hard. Had I control over my throat, I would have shrugged him off, telling him that saving my life is worth more than avoiding tiny pinpricks of pain or a bruise that would fade in a few hours. He got a sympathetic look from me instead.
They got me on a stretcher and brought me down the stairs, each bump painful for me. Then they got me out onto the front walk where, finally, the ambulance had arrived. The paramedics had been prepped and told all the information they needed. They already had the doors open for me to be brought in.
Epinephrine, it should be noted, is known for a few things. First, it’s excellent at stemming an allergic reaction, or delaying it long enough for hospitalization. It’s also known, jokingly, as a coma inducer. When it is actively countering an allergic reaction, and possibly when it isn’t, it tends to make you drowsy. And if you fall asleep, you stay asleep for quite a while.
I knew this about the drug, but I was having trouble staving off the drowsiness as they got me into the ambulance. The red and blue lights on top of the car were hurting my eyes with their brightness. Inside it wasn’t much better, the white cab-lights shining directly at me. And I had to keep my eyes open lest I fall asleep, and that would, I thought, lead to me suffocating. So I sat up and looked over at the man who would accompany me across the next fifteen miles.
This guy must have been new too. See, the EMTs are particularly good at getting information such as your address and phone number when they first arrive. Just in case news has to be delivered to the family as well as to speed up looking up records on the way to the hospital. They EMTs then give this information to the paramedics as you’re transferred over. It’s a great system that makes getting to the hospital faster when the ambulance actually arrives. But this guy didn’t get the memo about what you’re supposed to do while you’re waiting for the patient to get in.
He was actually asking me for my phone number! I was sitting there, bent over, wheezing and gasping for breath. Barely able to keep my body oxygenated, much less speak, and he wanted me to give him personal information! He was so insistent that I actually began ‘signing’ the phone number to him. That is, holding up a number of fingers for each digit so he could figure it out. He was a quick learner, though, as, after the phone number, he decided to stop bugging me while we were on our trip.
The hospital was too bright for me initially. That sterile white light that was everywhere hurt my eyes. I was also slightly drugged and drowsy, so this had something to do with it. I was inwardly singing praises about the nurses and doctors as, seeing this was an actual emergency, they eschewed the normally ******** and got me into a room and onto a straight epinephrine drip immediately. While this would help me immensely, it also made it much harder to stay awake.
More than that, they bed they had me on was bent at roughly a one hundred and twenty degree angle. Given that my breathing only seemed to work if I was bent over, with my face looking in the direction of the ground, this was bad. Looking at the ceiling meant blocked passageways. I quickly got up and swallowed by accident as I did. More pain this time, as if something was trying to get ripped off. It was another blood-based fireworks show in my clenched eyes. Almost like being at that Fourth of July all over again. Moreover, this clenching put me close to passing out. And while I’m normally not afraid of much, I was deathly afraid of falling asleep.
It didn’t take long for the doctors to get to me. Either I was a priority case that night or there wasn’t much for them to do. Either way, a man came in and sat on the bed with me.
“What you’re experiencing now is anaphylactic shock. It’s kind of an extreme allergic reaction.” He said. Seeing that I didn’t understand, he continued. “Your allergies have made bits of your throat swell up, cutting off oxygen. Your uvula, the thing in the back of your neck, is also swollen and is blocking the airways. That’s why you’re leaning forwards; to swing it away. The IV drip will help fix that. Just relax and let the medicine do its work.”
That explanation didn’t help me much, but I now knew what was going on. So I let myself fall back, finding it easier to breathe already. And, apparently, fell asleep, since I lost track of time. Sometime later I had the same doctor waking me up. This time, he looked a little uncomfortable.
“This is a bit embarrassing to ask, but I thought I should try. See, your uvula is roughly the size of a grapefruit at this point, and we’ve never seen one swell that big before.”
For a moment there I thought about how great this comment would be when taken out of context. I really should go use that as a pick-up line. “And the doctors told me they’ve never seen parts of the anatomy swell to quite that size!”
The doctor coughed into his hand and continued. “Now, we have some medical students here, and I was wondering if you’d mind letting them see for their studies.”
Not only had I become a pincushion this night, now I was a circus sideshow! Still, I couldn’t complain, both literally and metaphorically. This guy was saving my life, the least I could do was become a textbook example. Besides, it might provide some fame for me.
The med students paraded in and looked. They ooh’d and ah’d at me before filing out once more. And at about that point, I suppose I fell asleep.
I woke with a fright. I had fallen asleep! That could mean death! I quickly reached up and rubbed at my neck, swallowed again reflexively. It still hurt, by not as much. It was then I noticed that I was in a different room. Out of the ER and into one of the normal rooms. I was still hooked up, but I seemed to be fine. It seemed that my emergency visit was over, for the most part. And I was, as far as I could tell, no worse for the wear.
On my way out of the hospital, a few hours later, a doctor caught up to me. He told me, as he handed me some of their information packets, that they were rather lucky my mom reacted so quickly. My allergy was so advanced that they were unsure if I was going to make it, and they feared they wouldn’t be able to do so if it ever happened again. This was major food for thought at the time.
Then again, now I live six blocks from the hospital as opposed to fifteen miles.
Life changed a little with the addition of a potentially deadly allergy. Nowadays I have to carry epipens with me, these little needles-in-a-can that stab you when you jab them into your leg and inject some potent meds. Not enough to stop the reaction, but enough to delay your death so the medics can arrive. My current batch are expired, but mom keeps on telling me that expired doesn’t mean much with medicine. I’m not sure she understands that I’m worried because it’s my life on the line, not hers.
Not long ago I learned that epipens apparently grow more potent with time, and ones as expired as mine were are deadly. Isn't learning fun?
I also have to watch what I eat. And with the FDA requiring any product made on equipment that also processes nuts to have a sticker saying as much, there’s a lot of food I have to worry about touching. Chocolate, of course, but when I have to worry about bread, I get a little irritated. Every so often I’ll indulge and risk it. I’d rather die eating ice cream than any other way, I think.
There is some good that came out of this. A long and fun story to tell, a few humorous jokes that came out of it. And, most importantly, now that my uvula has been stretched to gargantuan sizes, I can touch it with my tongue whenever I want. It makes a great trick at parties.
My helpdesk should you need me.
Spelling and Grammar (0-5): 5/5. Very good. There really wasn’t anything I could nitpick too much about.
Characterization (0-10): 8/10. See, here’s a problem. You mentioned earlier that would be nonfiction. I assume the narrator is you and that you’re recounting a very bad experience with your allergy. And it’s a well-told, interesting tale. I’m just not sure how to rate you as a character, nor your mother and the medical personnel, since they’re real people and not characters. I hope I’ve managed to judge this fairly, but I will say that it was difficult.
Plot and Structure (0-10): 8/10. The structure was good. I don’t know that an anecdote has a plot like a traditional story would, but the events were logical and easy to follow.
Style (0-10): 9/10. Very engaging, observational, humorous at times, and easy to read. Well done.
Creativity (0-10): 8/10. Here’s another problem: how to assign a creativity score for a true story. Is it creative when you don’t have to make up the details? Ultimately, I decided that, while you might be telling us a true story, putting it the form you did, and making it a good read, definitely requires creativity.
Overall: 41/50. Normally 43, minus 2 points for being late.
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I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
Yep, you have two of the elements.
Spelling and Grammar (5):
Can’t find any errors.
Characterization (10):
The whole story was one big characterization, so here is where you’re going to earn the most points. You definitely created a sympathetic character that was unfortunately born with a plethora of different health problems.
Plot and Structure (6):
This story really wasn’t much for plot. A series of events that reveal his traits isn’t necessarily a plot. You do have a set of individual scenes but that’s all, no goal and the only real dialogue is of the doctors.
Style (8):
You have great thing going breaking up each individual idea into paragraphs. It made it very easy to read and liked that a lot, along with the good descriptions only where it was necessary. It wasn’t perfect but I did like it.
Creativity (8):
Yeah it’s pretty interesting… one person having all these disorders and how it affects their life. Good job.
42/50
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