Have you ever felt like you were dying? Your chest becomes heavy, your knees weaken, your vision blurs, and your ears ring? I have.
At age 5, my dad gave me a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. I started to eat them, but about halfway through the bowl, I didn’t feel good. I told him my lips were itchy and my mouth felt funny. He thought I was complaining because I didn’t like honey (earlier that year, he told me honey was made from “bee puke” and I never ate it again), so he told me to keep eating. I tried to eat it through the tears, but mom came to save me. She told me I could stop eating and she would make me toast if I drink a cup of water. So I did, and I felt better.
Seven years old and our neighbors brought over traditional desserts from their celebration the night before. It was sweet and crunchy, and I ate about three of them. I was about to start my fourth when I felt a lump in my throat. I figured a little piece of the ooey-gooeyness got stuck, so I tried to wash it down with some milk, and it wouldn’t budge. Again, my mom suggested water, and I drank lots of it. Eventually, I felt better.
I was at a graduation party for my best friend’s older sister when I was ten. We played bags, went swimming, chased the puppy, and ate a TON. It was towards the end of summer, and the bees were everywhere, they could smell the delicious food too. When it came to dessert, there was a whole table full of options, but my eyes drifted toward the tower of cookies: every kid’s dream. When my friend’s mom said we can have dessert, I made a beeline for the tower. Chocolate chip! My favorite! I grabbed as many as I could fit in my tiny ten year old hands, and ran back to my seat before anyone could stop me. There was one bee that would not leave my friend nor I alone, it kept landing on the rim of our Cokes. I began to eat the first cookie. It was still warm! It melted in my mouth. I didn’t even have to chew it, it just dissolved into deliciousness. I reached for the second with a trembling hand. That’s strange, it’s about 90 degrees, why am I shivering? I shook it off and tried again. My eyes went blurry, and I didn’t grab the cookie, but I knocked over my Coke. What is happening to me? I was dripping with sweat, but I was still trembling. I stumbled my way to my mom and I told her my throat felt funny in the strongest voice I could muster. She handed me a water bottle: “drink as much as you can. Chug it”. I tried, but I choked and spit it all out. My mom thought I swallowed the bee that kept flying around my Coke. I told her I didn’t think I did, I just felt weak. She rounded up my brother and carried me to the car, the party was over for me. We raced to the emergency room. They didn’t even check me in, they gave me a room right away and there were about five blurry nurses and doctors examining my sweaty, shaking body. They told my mother I was in anaphylactic shock, that I had to be given Benadryl, Epinephrine, and a steroid. My mom said she didn’t care, she just didn’t want to lose me.
Nine years have passed since that incident and I am still here. Shortly after my ER visit, I had an appointment with an allergist. He informed me that I have a severe nut allergy. After reviewing my past reactions, it all became clear. Many people do not understand what it means when I tell them that I am allergic to tree nuts. Nuts grow on trees, which make them tree nuts. You’d think that would be self-explanatory. Peanuts, however, are not nuts in the traditional sense. They grow on the ground, and are part of the bean/legume family. (Coconut is not a nut either, no more than a pineapple is an apple). This is one reason I tend to hide my allergy because of the ignorance of others, it is just easier to not explain. While nuts are a great source of nutrition and promote good health for others, they are a poison to me. There is an enzyme within them that compromises my immune system and actually causes harm to my body. The nuts I am mainly allergic to are walnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, pistachios, pine nuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts and a few more. However, I have to avoid all nuts, including peanuts, because they are usually roasted together or are packaged and processed in the same facility. My type of reaction is called “anaphylaxis”, which means my throat can close. This is a life threatening illness. Typically, children get more immune to the allergen the more they are exposed to it, but that wasn’t my case. I was the opposite; each time I was exposed, my reaction got more severe. It is something I am still learning to live with.
Entering junior high having to carry an epipen and benadryl with you at all times wasn’t easy. I had to sit at my own “safe table” at lunch away from my friends, and it got to be very lonely. It’s a disability people can’t see; and therefore, they don’t understand it. I can’t even begin to count how many times I was given strange looks for telling someone I have an allergy or for asking the ingredients in food. Many times, people think I’m lying. They think that I just don’t like nuts, so I avoid them by saying I have an allergy. I remember one instance in seventh grade when a boy threw a bag of almonds at me at lunch because he “wanted to see what would happen”. Well, if I wasn’t rushed to the nurse’s office, he could have seen me die.
During high school and when I started dating, my allergy was often turned sexual which really disturbed me, but I just tried to grin and bear it. For a while, I refrained from telling people, even waiters at restaurants. This would anger my family because if we went out to eat and my food was cooked in the same pan or dish as something that had nuts I could have a reaction, I was willing to accept the consequences because I was tired of being a burden. Everyone thought it was a joke, but it was never funny to me. I was too embarrassed, it seemed too much of a hassle for everyone else, and I was tired of being the punchline to a joke I never understood.
Even as recently as last Christmas, I encountered someone who didn’t understand. I was travelling with my family and we have to inform the airline of my allergy so I can sanitize my seat and so that they don’t serve peanuts. Well, there was a gentleman who was old enough to be my father who was so angered that he wasn’t receiving his peanuts that he proceeded to yell at the flight attendants and demanded that they remove my family from the plane because “it is his right to be served nuts” and he refused to eat the bagged pretzels.
What people don’t understand about severe allergies is that based on the severity, the person could actually die. No one will die if the have to abstain from the allergen for an hour or two. Is it really worth risking someone’s life so you can eat one salty snack instead of another? Allergies are no laughing matter. Nowadays, there are nut products in everything from food, to shampoo, to soaps, and lotions. I have to read every label when I shop to ensure my safety at home. If I go out, I always have to carry a purse with my emergency medication because you never know what could happen. I have to ask for ingredients of home cooked meals and at restaurants always. My allergy has become a part of my everyday life. And my life is nuts.
