Before I begin, let me just say that if anyone else were to tell the following story I would be incredulous to say the least. I am, however, an honest little wheat freak, so believe me when I tell you that walking past a bakery can be bad for your health.
I had the markets this morning. It was a gorgeous day, bright and shiny. I got to play with puppies, gossip the day away and paint myself silly. Ten came to help pack up and I bought roses and stuff to make a baked dinner because Shelley is coming over with her new fiance, who I am meeting for the first time. Very exciting ;)
After the markets I came home and arranged the flowers, tidied up a bit, had a glass of ice cold Sav Blanc. Then I realised that I needed quince paste and passionfruit, so I drove to the shops, only noticing at the checkout that I was still wearing my paint smeared apron and Widget badge.
On the way out to my car I walked past the bakery. This is where we enter the strange place. As I passed, a baker (packing up for the day) shook out a sack of flour, about a metre to my left. The wind picked up the flour and blew it onto me. This is problematic, you see, because I am such a delicate flower that just one tiny breadcrumb will induce anaphylaxis.
You know, I've mused in the past about what would happen if I were to be the unhappy receipient of a flour bomb on muckup day. Or what would the result of a bakery tour be? Curiosity is sated now :P I saw it coming, but there were too many people around to avoid it. So I held my breath and walked to the bathrooms (thank gawd I have swimmer's lungs), washed off my face and glasses, checked the colour of my epipen and jammed that wand of awesomeness into my upper thigh.
I know by this point of the story you might possibly be thinking "Oh Goodness! How terrifying!" or some such, but I have to tell you it is anything but.
It was freaky, I'll give you that. I mean seriously, what are the odds? That one of the very few people in the city that is that allergic to wheat should walk into flour sack fallout. Hehe well that's just my crazy luck.
I still can't believe it happened. I feel wierd writing about it. But I'm buzzing like Russell Brand pre-rehab and I'm pretty sure that I could take on the entire cast of Heroes right now and still make a passionfruit slice. That may be the adrenalin talking.
I am kind of pissed off, it's not an ideal situation. On the other hand, I know (have always known) that I am a frigging ninja when I need to be. It's kind of awesome to know that when the shit hits the fan, I can look after myself. A needle to the thigh may seem drastic, but to me it is the reset button.
It lets me start again.
Thankyou epipen, I heart you.
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I totally was thinking 'Oh my goodness' you caught me.
I have been reading a little about that asphylaxis (can't spell it) and that is so dangerous. You have to be so careful.
Well I am glad you had your pen to jab in your leg (ouch). Crazy how you could get it through that thick skin of yours (ha ha, reference to earlier post re what you are made of).
Funny how that Ninja comes out when you need it.
Hope you had a good market with your art.
Take care and keep doing the best you can. You sound like you made the best of what was probably a very scary situation. You are awesome.
Love Renee xoxoxoxox
Yairs, you are totally busted :p
It's been around for a few years now, the old anaphylaxis. Had a few close calls before, but this one was different because it took more time to get somewhere I could do the needle (no point injecting it till I'd washed the flour off). It was such a tiny amount too, but I breathed it in, which sucks. Hehe sucks. Oh dear.
I have an old gold bracelet of mum's that I modified to inc. my little warning charm. Has all my medical info on it. I don't usually wear jewellry though, even though i love it, just forget. But I still have about 5-10 mins reaction time and definitive warning signs that let me know I may have consumed something not good for me. So yep, dangerous, but manageable.
It used to be much scarier, before I was diagnosed, because I lived alone and had no idea what was going on. After a bad meal I would throw up for hours then spend the next few days feeling like a prize fighter after a match.
These days I just have a slighlty sore leg and no sleep for about 12 hours while my heart slows down :P Much better option. Feeling it today more than usual though because the adrenalin was towards it's expiry date so it doesn't work as well. I think that's it anyway. I don'r usually write about any of this, but your post made me think. Maybe I should explain how this works, then people will know more about anaphylaxis and won't panic if they see/have it happen :)
Don't worry yourself, I think I'm trying to say. I have the world's best boyfriend (he just pats me and talks to me so I don't get bored). My specialist is awesome too. Very smart and funny as hell.
You are awesome, you crack me up ;)
I think it would be awesome to open up. People really don't know what is going on with us and I think and hope that the good ones really do care and want to know.
I would want to know if someone I care about could use my understanding or at least know that I want to understand what things can be like for them.
Boyfriend sounds awesome.
Love Renee xoxox
OMG, Holy F*%K. This is freaken scary.
At first I was thinking what on earth is someone doing emptying out a bag of flour? And that was before I read the bit about it landing on you.
Did you go back and tell them?!! If I was with them I would have told them off for you. Not for them to know of course, but still, you need to be more carefull when there are people around!
Mr You's dad carries an adrenaline pen, he has developed a fatal allergy to prawns (ironic after years of being a prawn fisherman).
I also meant to empathise with you a while back staying out of the sun because you're an eczema kid (me too). I've mostly grown out of it now, but I was the real deal in my childhood and teen years. Like the ones you see on amazing medical stories. It's hard because people don't believe me now, but back then it overwhelmed my life, and had a huge impact on my self esteem as an adult. Took lots of therapy to get over it. :)
Ahhhh, we all have woes of some kind don't we?
Anyway, my lovely. You stay out of passing flour clouds okay? Otherwise I'm going to get on the train and come and tell all those silly bakers off, complete with finger pointing and fist shaking too! ;)
P.S. I think it's wonderful that you and Renee have found each other :D
Hi Flossy :)
He was just cleaning up at the end of the day I think. I'm not much of a dobber, but I did go in a couple of days later and explain (feeling like a bit of a wierdo for doing so). I just told them that while it was a freak accident and I don't want to tell them how to do their job, it's better to do something like that in a contained area. He said that there are actually guidelines on how the bags should be stored, emptied etc, but that he was a bit rushed.
Really nice guy, wanted to give me things to say sorry, so I took a bottle of coke, cakes not much good for me :P
You're an exzema person too (I never know how to spell that)? That's so cool :) I was the same as a kid, used to get really embarassing at ballet class because I would always have it all over my legs, but most of the kids were really nice about it. Doesn't stop it making you feel bad though. Can't believe your father in law is like me but with prawns after working with them, but it does prove my specialists theory that prolonged exposure to known allergens can induce serious issues... will have to tell him.
Thankyou so much for introducing me to Renee, she's lovely :)
Yes, I must say no-one at school was never terribly mean to me about the eczema, not in front of me anyway... but that may be because I wore a full tracksuit to school everyday to hide my skin. Which of course made me very hot, making it all much more painful and itchy... I think I grew up in the wrong climate :)
It may also have been because there was already a girl at my new school who had it, so all the kids were used to it I guess. And boy was she glad to meet me. Her name was Robin. I hope she's all better and happy somewhere now :)
My biggest fear now is that my future children will have it, and how much that will break my heart. Hurts me to even contemplate it.
Anyway. I'm very glad you had a chance to explain your terrible flour co-incidence to the baker :) Good for you.
So crazy. It must've just been such slow motion, watching that flour float over to you... so not cool.
To Flossy P: I worry about possibly passing on my itchbot skin to possibly future children too, same with anaphylaxis, can't even imagine how hard it would be to manage with a toddler who likes to chew on stuff.
It's funny, the exzema only came back when the wheat stuff got really bad, I think because my body was so run down. Now I'm pretty much ok so long as I water down my fruit juices and stay away from salycilates (natural kind of asprin found in foods). Still petitioning my uncle (runs Blackmores) to start making their exzema balm again, but he said that the ingredients they used to use are too expensive to make the product viable. Pants.
To Penny:
Totally, if only I could have done some Matrixey back bend and gotten away from it ;)
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