Or: How a small bag of peanuts ruined my day, for which I will be paying for many years from now.

My story of RBFPA (Really Bad Fucking Peanut Allergy) started around 12:30. I bought a bag of peanuts. I eat nuts all the time, as I am a vegetarian and need the good oils and proteins and all that. About 10 minutes after eating this bag of peanuts, my tongue felt like it was swelling. I thought nothing of it, because I really had no reason to think anything weird was going on as I eat them all the time. As I walked on to work I felt short of breath, but my stress level has been high and, well, I had other stuff on my mind. I didn’t get much better at work, and when I barely squeaked out a phone conversation from my tensing throat, I decided something was amiss. I read online about peanut allergies on WebMD.com and how they are treatable with anti-histamines. I wheezed my way over to the bookstore to buy some, and went back to work. This was around 2pm.

I started to feel better.

Around 4pm, things got really REALLY bad. I started wheezing again, and my throat started contracting. Someone walked by my desk and asked if I was okay, to which I answered with a shrug. He then commented that my face was swelling. So, I called the consulting nurse at school. She told me to hang up and call 911.

But, I don’t have health insurance. I decided I couldn’t do that. Let’s be real - I can barely afford my rent.

My boss called his wife, who also has a peanut allergy, and she instructed me to double my Benadryl dosage (so, after this I’ve taken 150 mg of Benadryl in 2 hours) and to get to the health clinic on campus. I tell my boss I will walk over there, but he insists that he and his wife will drive me over.

We get into the clinic, and I notice people are kind of panicking. I’m not really sure why, and feel like it’s a lot of overkill. I talk to the doctor and tell him what happened and what I’ve taken. He nods politely for a bit, and gives me the news: he won’t let me leave the clinic, he has called an ambulance, and I need to go to the hospital right away. They give me an epinephrine shot (which is adrenaline) to get my reaction to stop.

By the time the medics get there, I’m am TWEAKED out: I’m sleepy from the Benadryl, shaking from the ephinephine, and pissed off that I have to go to the hospital. Apparently this is mostly internal, as the medic gives the doctor a quizzical look and says I’m the most lucid peanut allergy they have ever seen. They start to make the obvious jokes about my name, and one of the medics tells me he thinks my shirt is cute.

By the time they wheel me out of the clinic, quite dramatically in the 5pm traffic and drizzling Seattle rain, I can’t feel my fingers and my heart is leaping out of my chest. I just stare at the ceiling of the ambulance, asking the flirty medic about all the gear hanging from above. It’s all I can do to keep my mind clear, because at this point I’m just scared and want to talk to someone other than these doctors who keep telling me how grave my situation is.

I get in to the ER (which, if you look at a campus map of UW, is maybe a mile away from the clinic), I talk to some nurses and the attending doctor and wait. And wait some more. The hospital tells me they can’t call Dylan (my emergency contact) because his number is from California. So I try to call Dylan from my phone, but can’t get any reception because I’m in ER room BFE and I’m in no position to move. Now I really start to feel sorry for myself: my arm is shaking so bad from the epinephrine I can’t really read what I’m trying to text Dylan, I have no one else to call, my life sucks, this fucking bill is going to be insane, etc.

You can pretty much predict how it went from here, outside of needing another epinephrine shot because the allergy started to flare again. They decided that I could go home around 9pm, gave me a shit ton of steroid and anti-inflammatory medicine and - get this - my very own mobile epinephrine shot. I officially have RBFPA, and need to use it if someone sneaks in some peanuts into my food because I will go into anaphylaxic shock. Yes, like Freaks and Geeks.

Funny how life works out sometimes.