Bad Day

The morning
It could have gone either way – you know how it unfolds, a series of seemingly insignificant events predicts the type of day that lies ahead. At first it wasn’t looking good. But, I had no major wardrobe malfunctions, all of the left lane putzers actually got out of my way on the drive to work, and the normal morning talk show gibberish about movie stars, farts, and relationships gone bad was miraculously replaced with a series of good songs. By song #3 I declared that this was going to be a good day. That’s right - I said it out loud. Fatal mistake.
It all started to go bad when I got to work and reached into my bag for my diet cherry coke. It wasn’t there. I left the damn coke on the table again; now I have to settle for something caffeine-free. But there were Dunkin Donuts in the kitchen, and the left lane driver and morning music phenomenons couldn’t be dismissed so easily, so I chalked it up to "blessing in disguise." After all, I have a new antibiotic to take today; maybe I shouldn’t take it with caffeine.
The reaction
I believe I would have felt better had I taken rat poison, with or without caffeine. It started with an uncontrollable cough. Loud, hacking, can’t breathe, eyes watering, chest-exploding kind of cough. Then my ears started to itch. Oh god, how do I scratch the inside of my ears!!???? I wanted to rip them off my head. When the boss walked in I had both hands pressed against my ears, elbows straight out, pressing in as hard as I could, tears pouring out of my eyes from the coughing, which I wasn’t even trying to suppress anymore. He didn’t even find this scene to be odd. I didn’t argue when he told me to go home.
All of a sudden my lips started hurting, kind of like hundreds of needles mixed with what I imagine extreme dehydration would feel like. I still didn’t get it. My brilliant solution to horrible sharp lip pain was to pull out my chapstick. I thought it worked because 5 minutes later there was no more pain, there was no more feeling at all. My mouth was numb and swollen – and there was the light bulb. Allergic reaction to the antibiotic.
As the drama unfolds, Tricia is sitting outside my office, listening to my teret-like rants (which actually are not that unusual). This is kind of how it went: cough cough cough, "maybe I will go home," cough cough cough, "My LIPS hurt! It’s like something is piercing my lips! AGGHH!" cough cough cough, "Tricia I think maybe I’m having a reaction to that pill" which came out more like "Twiha I sink maybe I having weaction to pill."
When her eyes got huge at the sight of me, I knew there was trouble. Ok, hopefully this is just a side-effect. I called the doctor. I saw Hitch and figured the cure was a bottle of Benedryl. No such luck. Doc says ER, and now people are gathering outside my office, pointing and whispering.
The hospital
By the time I get there, I wish I could pull off my ears and gouge out my eyes. My whole face feels like I’ve rubbed it in poison ivy. I wander around for a good two minutes trying to figure out where to go. Finally, I find my way to the ER. The ER guy says fill out a pink paper, put it in a basket, and wait, so I do, after only 2 more minutes of wandering to actually locate the pink paper and the basket. I realize my face must be getting worse because people in the waiting room actually stop talking when I walk in. They don’t even bother being discreet about the staring. There is no one in the room with a limb hanging off or a bullet wound, so I decide that my condition is the most important. Evidently not, because I sat there long enough for the disfigurement to worsen, and the itch spread down into my neck and arms.
My ER companions:
After my co-worker reminds them that I’m having an allergic reaction & may stop breathing soon, not to mention I’m getting increasingly harder to look at, they take me into stage 1 – tell us your problem. In the midst of my dramatic tale, I am interrupted by a woman who has a sore foot. She is walking and standing without assistance, has no bullet wounds, knife wounds, or deadly allergic reactions that I can see, but she is persistent enough to get the nurse to walk away from me twice to try and find Dr. G. She must see Dr. G. He told her to come in for a follow up. Now I’m furiously scratching, my eyes, ears, cheeks (not my lips because I can’t feel them), arms, and it’s spreading to my chest. But thank God the woman got to see Dr. G. I hope her foot is feeling much better.
Back to waiting. They’ll buzz me when they are ready. Two Navy women are discussing the boots, how they used to have black but the new browns ones are just as bad. They really make your feet stink. The entire conversation was spoken in what mom calls "outside voices" in a room that was about 10 x 10. The smelly foot conversation actually lasted longer than my first visit with the nurse.
Now my face is purple, eyes are bulging from my head, and I can’t see that great. It’s getting hard to swallow. My buzzer is called, time for paperwork. It’s my lucky day – I got the new girl. She had some trouble knowing what buttons to push "do I push 5 because it happened at work? That is the work button, but it’s not a workers comp. Maybe I should push "other" because I can’t push 4 since she wasn’t at home..." About 5 minutes into this debate I wanted to blurt out that I was a liar. It did happen at home. In fact, I don’t even have a job, just like to wear suits around the house to feel important. So go ahead and push button 4 for "home" please and send me on my way to get some Benedryl. But she decided on "other."
Another buzzer, more waiting, more swelling, more itching. I’m pretty sure I resemble a zoo monkey the way I’m furiously scratching all over my upper body. I went to look in the mirror. Oh God. I’ve now progressed to a grotesque amalgamation of Hitch and Sloth. Smelly foot conversation is still going when I’m finally called back to the ER where I’m filled with more pills and yet another butt shot. That’s three in two days. I wish I had just allowed myself to get pneumonia instead of visiting the doctor yesterday. But, 20 minutes later, no more itch. And 20 more, back to being white instead of purple. And 20 more, I almost look normal, well with huge lips and cheeks, but normal compared to my arrival. Doc asked "do your lips always look like that?" But I’m well enough to give up the room to the next emergency and sit in the hallway to be released. This process takes only another 40 minutes. My hallway companion is Dave. He suffers from itchy feet, a possible nervous breakdown, and an overactive cell phone ("Yeah this is Dave. Yeah man, I had a nervous breakdown" each word yelled even louder than the last. Can you use cell phones in here???)
Forget Dave, there is someone more interesting coming in on a stretcher from an ambulance. They park her in front of Dave and let her crawl onto another gurney. I think security will be coming soon. She’s mad. She’s probably high, she’s crawling onto the gurney backwards and confused, trying to get her eyes to focus on Dave who is still on the phone talking about his nervous breakdown. They have to turn her around. They forgot to belt her in though and within 10 minutes she’s trying to find the way out cuz she wants to go home! She starts yelling at her companion (daughter??) for calling the ambulance. Daughter insists "it weren’t me." This woman wants out bad but the hospital can’t let her go since she threatened suicide which is illegal. (What is the state penalty for suicide???) Interestingly enough, the threat about her breaking the law actually calms her down for a few minutes.
I didn’t get to stay long enough to see how Dave and Psycho made it. My drama ended with more prescriptions and a slightly puffy, but at least human looking face. Still a little puffy today, but I think I’ll just have collagen injected into my lower lip to match the top before I have any more prescriptions filled.