Life Lessons in 2008: Number 1

New antibiotic allergies discovered this year.

Always fun to discover those. You pop a pill...the same kinda pill that you've taken many times throughout your life and 15 minutes later, the itching starts. Seemingly from the inside out...it's noticed first in the ears. No finger, or Q-Tip can reach this itch. The itch, rather rapidly, spreads over your entire body, and just as you reach for the potato peeler to start peeling away the layers of your skin to find the itch...the hives pop up. Now you have superficial targets...a specific point to focus your itching attention on. This keeps you busy playing Whack-A-Mole...or Itch-A-Hive...and you hardly notice that your tongue is now itchy and your throat has begun to swell.

While still trying to find a way out of your own skin...you hear the sound. What is that whistling? You ask yourself...Has the itch fucked with my eardrums? Do I have a booger causing my nose to sing? Then you realize...that you don't have a booger...nothing that serious...no, it's your airway closing up, that's all! Once that sinks in...you panic just a little, wondering exactly how far this thing is going to go. Are we talking pop a benadryl or two, kick your feet up and relax?...Are we talking call an ambulance? Or, are we talking, "Honey, grab some epinephrine and go all Vincent Vega on my ass...and stab me in the sternum!"

Or, you can do what I did...and drive to the hospital and sit outside the emergency room and wait for things to get better or worse.

That was a fun day!