Yesterday evening I was chatting with my friend Brianne outside when I had two sudden sharp pains in my neck. I touched the spot and It felt like I had rubbed a thistle into my throat, so I asked Bri if I had something on my neck. She took a look and found two small bug bites surrounded by a big red blotch. I was on my way out the door, so I headed home planning on taking an antihistamine.

I live a block and a half away from Brianne’s house, and by the time I got home my tongue was swollen, and the back of my throat was beginning to swell shut. Chris had, thankfully, been sent home early from work, so I tossed the kids his way, gave a very brief explanation and took myself to the ER. ( I know, I know, I drove myself to the ER while in the pre stages of anaphylactic shock. Dumb, dumb, dumb.) The ER is three minutes from my house, and since half my face and my neck had gone numb, and swallowing was becoming an issue, I bolted through the doors, ignored the huge piles of paperwork, and poked the button they have for people who are bleeding profusely or who can’t breathe. I wrung my hands thinking, “C’mon, c’mon. . .open the door already” for the very long ten seconds it took them to answer.

They put an oxegyn monitor on one hand and asked me where I would like my IV. It wasn’t, “would you like an IV”, or “how about an IV”, it was “We’re putting this in you, so wrist or elbow, and make it snappy!” I went with the elbow (wrist IVs never go well with me, I have no idea why.) They gave me some steroids and then after I explained that I drove myself and I tend to be a feather weight on drugs, they gave me half the dose of IV Benadryl.

Let me tell you, these drugs combined are some fun stuff. My head was swimming, and I was getting a bit giggly while I kept nodding off. Every time I nodded off, my legs would jerk and I’d be awake again, snickering over my involuntary kicking, and trying to figure out which one of the three guys checking on me was my doctor and which were nurses, and also worrying that my oxygen monitor was broken because it was reading in the eighties, when mine had always read in the ninety-nine or hundredth percentile before. Then I remembered why I was there and taking this trip to begin with, and started giggling again! About ten minutes into this, I started thinking that since I was enjoying this so much, another dose would be really fun. Unfortunately, the swelling was already going down, so another dose was out of the question, and I returned to sanity before I was able to embarrass myself by asking for more.

They watched me for a few hours, and then sent me home after I swore I was good to drive. At home, I passed out immediately and slept like a log until four am, when I awoke with a jolt, like I always do at four am, except this time, I wasn’t thirsty, like I usually am at four in the morning. I was wide awake and craving stuffing. Since it’s not Thanksgiving, I didn’t have any on hand, which kind of bummed me out. I called my sister in England, but she wasn’t home, so I called my mom, who was home and wondering why I was calling her at five am my time. I blamed the steroids, and then went on to scrub my floors, clean the kitchen, take the garbage out, pick up the dining room and living room and sort laundry, all before six am, when I woke up the kids.

So now it’s eight. And I’m blogging. And breathing.