(Well, to be strictly accurate, it was yesterday. But that’s not what Elton John sang, and I can’t find any song references to cashews)
Yesterday didn’t exactly go as planned — well, at least for half of it. Off to Church on Sunday morning (as is our normal habit), and as part of the sermon, our minster handed out cashews (don’t ask, and if you want to berate me for attending a church service, you’re seriously at the wrong blog). I’ve never had a problem with cashews, so I chomped away merrily.
The service ended, and we headed in to do some light shopping, including some new sneakers for me, as my existing ones (which were IT-vendor-branded anyway) were covered in tiling cement. As we drew into the carpark, my windpipe decided to draw closed — very suddenly indeed. Imagine, if you will, your entire throat throbbing and swelling up to twice its normal size, while your windpipe within suddenly contracts to the size of the straw that comes with Juice poppers.
All within about five seconds.
I managed to gasp out to Di that I couldnt’ breathe, and she rushed me to hospital. I had visions of waiting and gasping in the emergency ward, but to their credit I only had to croak out that I couldn’t breathe and the hospital staff had me on a bed, canula in arm being pumped full of steroids, while the other was hooked up to blood pressure, oxygen saturation and heartbeat monitors. Uncomfortable isn’t the word, but it sure beats being dead.
The drugs they had me on made me massively drowsy, but this was seriously annoying, as the beds in emergency were clearly built for Dorothy’s Munchkins — lying flat on my back, which I had to, due to the sensors and tubes sticking out of me, there was no way to actually sleep.
Six hours later I hadn’t relapsed, so they let me go home, where I collapsed into a torpor in bed, pretty much for the whole night. So much for getting lots of work done on Sunday, and so much for things like cashews, peanut butter, gleefully ignoring “may contain traces of nuts” labels on product packaging and even Chili sauce! (those who want more reading on the topic can look here)
Right. Now to deal with Monday. Hopefully it’ll be a bit quieter.
Good grief Charlie Brown. Nothing like sudden onset nut allergy. I’m glad to hear you’re ok now.
We’ll be in Sydney around the weekend after Easter for Matthew’s (Cav and Ness’ 2nd) dedication. We’re taking several days either side of the weekend as well, so let’s hope we can catch up!