So you try to breathe
But nothing gets through your nose
Allergies are great
Okay, even by my low standards, that haiku basically sucked.
But who even knows if they’re allergies or something gone totally defective in my sinuses? It’s funny in a way, because as annoying as it is to have my nose almost perpetually plugged up, I’ve kind of gotten used to it. I guess this proves the old adage that you can get used to almost anything.
And addicted to nasal spray.
No, not addicted. I can stop any time. Any season. A season without allergies. The best season.
That’s it, I’m going to bed. Or have a bath. Something to take my mind off my nose.
On Thursday, May 3rd I went to the ER again after developing an allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was on. The reaction started on Monday and Wednesday I found myself both very spotty and fatigued. The fatigue may have been unrelated or psychosomatic. Either way, I wanted to get a professional opinion on what I could or couldn’t do for this particular reaction.
I originally planned on visiting the ER before noon, but ended up not getting out of bed until after 11, so I was actually eating breakfast at lunch. I went after 1 p.m. and foolishly assumed it would be quieter during the week than on the weekend. I’m not sure what my logic was in thinking this, but I was horribly wrong.
There weren’t many people in the ER, which lulled me into a false sense of “This isn’t going to take long.” Here is my tale, written live blog-style thanks to the wonders of technology.
1:07 p.m. Here I am again in emergency, hooray. Today’s special is spots all over the body. I ordered the full meal.
1:20 p.m .Still waiting, lots more people coming in now. No one here has any obvious symptoms or injuries, which strikes me as a wee bit odd. Maybe someone will suddenly have blood start gushing from their eyeballs or something.
Actually, a kid about 8 looks like he hurt his arm. he’s holding it in that “I dun broke it” way, but looks super casual otherwise. If I broke my arm I’d at least look a bit distracted.
1:25 p.m. I’m in at Check-in 2, getting prepped for triage. Temperature and blood pressure taken again (the latter may be increasing with each trip to the ER), get another set of those impossible-to-remove bands on my wrist. They have not added the new antibiotic to the second band. Yet.
1:33 p.m. Moved to triage. Unlike the main ER area, this room is very crowded here and everyone looks sad or quietly angry.
Every time my name is called out, they say Stanley, like they’re my mom. To be fair, it’s what my ID says. It still feels a little odd.
1:43 p.m. A woman almost misses her call as she’s wearing earbuds and rocking out in a chair directly in front of the nurse calling her name. She’s about the only one here who doesn’t look unhappy. I don’t want to listen to music and lose my place. I’d probably be here another two hours.
I’m wearing shorts today. At least the weather is nice.
2:00 p.m. Time keeps on ticking…
Some weird period abduction movie is playing on the TV, with stabbing and blood. The twist is the abductor is a woman and the abductee is a man. Some vigilante woman with a bow comes to rescue the man, but her target, in true Mike Myers fashion, pulls the arrow out of her chest and tries stabbing vigilante woman with it. As one does in these situations. This movie doesn’t seem like maybe the best choice to be showing in a hospital. Okay, I remember seeing that it was on CBC, so I looked it up and it turned out to be an episode of Murdoch’s Mysteries, “a one-hour drama set in Toronto in the late 1890s and early 1900s during the age of invention.” Apparently the mystery in this episode is how you can’t disable someone with an arrow fired at near point-blank range.
Shortly after this ends, a show called The Goods starts. People laugh a lot. It’s some home improvement thing set in a studio with an audience of about 12 people. They all seem to much happier than those of us here in triage. Before the first makeover begins, a Code Blue is called for the lower entrance. Several staff go running by. I hear a vehicle backup sound. Code Blue means someone in need of immediate resuscitation. I’m probably a Code Mauve.
2:03 p.m. I’m wondering what if anything they can do or give me. If I had a super power right now I would totally go with body spot remover.
A kid is crying over in emergency. It’s faint, though, almost subliminal. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
The young guy sitting across from me appears to have fallen asleep. Just as I finished writing this he sprang to life and took out his phone. His sleepy eyes now have the zombified glaze of the modern smartphone owner.
2:08 p.m. It dawns on me that this is triage and as such I may be the last one looked at. I gird myself for a long wait.
2:14 p.m. I notice my chart is gone from the chart repository. This seems like a promising sign.
2:20 pm The guy sitting next to me gets restless, gets up, raids a vending machine and is now pacing back and forth in front of me eating heavily salted snacks. It’s mildly annoying. He’s apparently not going to sit back down.
2:23 p.m. Running out of seats now. Munchies Man may be accidentally nice by refusing to sit.
Salty Snacks Guy gets his chart or whatever and is free to go–just in time, as he finished all his nuts.
2:27 p.m. I have been waiting in triage for about an hour now. I know my phone battery can hold out, but still….
2:29 p.m. A woman sits next to me and a nurse starts administering an IV to her, explaining the procedure. I don’t really want to be part of this. Fortunately at nearly the same time I finally get called in.
2:31 p.m. I’m in a small exam room by myself this time. The doctor leaves so I can put on a gown after I remove my shirt. This turns out to be unnecessary, except for some untold amusement value.
2:36 p.m. I sit on the exam bed and wait. I haven’t secured my gown very well and it keeps wanting to slip off my shoulder, like I’m trying to make myself alluring.
2:45 p.m. The doctor finally returns and has changed into a man. He introduces himself but I don’t quite catch the name. Dr. Mark Flibberman or something. He seems non-nonsense. He asks a few questions about the reaction, gets me to pull up the gown to show my spotty abdomen, makes me stick out my tongue, then says very firmly, “Never take that antibiotic again.” That seems like a good idea. He deems this a mild allergic reaction and recommends Benadryl and says Reactine is also good. It will take around 10 days to clear up (I’m on Day 7 as I write this and this seems plausible. It’s just now showing signs of fading). He doesn’t suggest I do anything else in particular, except to return if I see symptoms of a stronger reaction. These include fun things like:
difficulty in swallowing or breathing
skin peeling off
ulcers in the mouth
None of these have occurred yet, but given how things have gone this year, I’m not placing bets until the spots have completely faded.
2:48 p.m. Unlike my previous visit, I leave empty-handed, save for the bracelets. I have to pick up something from an Amazon locker at a nearby TD branch and try to look inconspicuous, even though it’s totally obvious I’m wearing bracelets from the hospital. Not to mention the spots.
I have spent nearly two hours at the hospital. I probably could have looked up the same info in five minutes on WebMD.com. Oh well. At least the news was…not bad?
This concludes my second and hopefully last trip to the ER this year.
Bonus image. This is what my right leg looked like after a walk the same day. Vigorous activity was making the spots extremely vivid for a couple of days. It’s honestly kind of gross, so I’ve put it inside a spoiler:
This morning I finished the last of my 10 day prescription of Apo-Clindamycin and mused how nice it was to not have experienced any of the side effects. I remembered, of course, that both the doctor and pharmacist warned me side effects could occur after I’d finished taking all of the antibiotics.
You know what happened next.
Around noon I went to the washroom before going for my lunch hour walk and I noticed in the mirror that I looked a little flushed. A little glowing, in fact. Upon closer inspection I saw that my neck was livid with red dots.
This is not normal.
I looked at my arms and yes, I had a rash and it was spreading. Arms, legs, neck, front, back. Everywhere below the neck, except my hands and feet. And a few hours later it moved above my face, giving my face the appearance of a sunburn. Also, several parts of my body became super itchy.
It was not fun.
I went to the school clinic. The doctor gave me a three-day supply of Reactine and couldn’t say when, exactly, I’d see the effects of it. As of tonight I am seeing little reactin’ (get it?!), but there is perhaps some mild improvement. I don’t feel as itchy.
She also told me to see my doctor soon for allergy tests and such, as this would be the third major class of antibiotics I’d be allergic to. It’s possible that this may be a one-time reaction upon first use, since I did get through the entire supply before any effects occurred. But still, not the snazziest way to start a new month.
I did not complain today because I had no one to complain to.
Technically, that’s not true–I could complain to myself, and I kind of did, because I stayed at home to battle the worsening congestion I have been experiencing in my sinuses over the past few months.
In spring 2016 I experienced allergy-like symptoms and my doctor said it was quite possible that I had developed an allergy or two as allergies are neat that way. You can get them later in life because allergies are jerks.
Spring of 2017 saw similar symptoms but in the summer they went away, as one would expect of seasonal allergies.
Then something curious happened. When the weather started to cool and turn damp in the fall, the symptoms came back. Was I suddenly allergic to bare trees and the absence of pollen? I grumbled a bit to myself but kept on keeping on.
In the last month or so it’s gotten worse to the point that:
I sometimes get so clogged up I can’t breathe. This is never good and it sometimes happens in places where I really wouldn’t want it to happen, like on public transit or when sitting in a movie theater.
certain sleep positions will cause the same thing, to the point that I’ve started using Breathe Right strips every night just to force my nose to stay open (they actually help, too).
even when I’m not completely clogged up, I’m usually no less than 50% clogged up. As I type this my left nostril is open but the right is about 95% blocked. This will arbitrarily switch later on*.
the symptoms persist everywhere–at home and at work, in the rain and in the dark, on a train and in a car**.
The ever-persistent state concerns me because if it is an allergy, it suggests I’m allergic to something that’s ever-present, like dust or air or atoms or something. Anyway, I’m going to get tested for allergies soon. In the meantime I’ll just keep moving about rapidly, as it’s one of the few ways I can keep my sinuses reliably open. Gotta go!
Oh, all of which is to say that while I may have complained extensively to myself today about my congestion, I didn’t complain to anyone else–and I’m not complaining now! I’ve assessed the situation, made a plan of action and will be following up, because that’s how winners battle being allergic to atoms.
On to Day 20!
* in the time it took to get to the end of the post, the nostril situation has reversed. It’s all very weird.
** apologies to Dr. Suess
