It’s 5.30pm on Friday evening, the kids and I are eating dinner. Yummy, mashed potatoes, carrots and fish. We munch away quite happily, it’s been a quiet day and we’re looking forward to the weekend. At 6pm notice a couple of bumps on my thighs and one one my face. They’re itching a little. I drive up to the pharmacy and buy some benadryl, take it and hope they go away. By 7.30pm there are many, many hives, on my legs, face, arms and in my armpits. Scanning the web, every web site I find says just take benadryl and wait it out. My husband is out, I call him, I’m getting scared they’re getting bigger and not responding to the benadryl. The more I worry the worse I’ll make them I decide. So at 11pm, I decide to go to bed. The largest of the hives are around the size of my hand. At 1am I wake, my body is stiff, the hives are worse. I don’t feel right. I decide to go to the ER.

I worry I’m overreacting but I can’t sleep and things are getting rapidly worse. I get dressed and drive 5 minutes on my own in the middle of the night to the ER. I sign in, explain what’s happening and wait.

“Bertha”, this grumpy nurse calls. “Actually, it’s Sandra”, I say. “Whatever. Bertha will do”, she replies. Charming, we’re off to great start here. Nonetheless, I tell her what’s happening, she takes my vitals and takes me to another room. She must truly hate her job, as the hospital clogs she wears never get lifted off the floor. I know when she’s coming because I can hear the slow scrape, scrape of her feet sending us the message of ‘why am I working here?’ I can also hear her tired voice talking with the other patients. Now I am not really a very good patient, I like to apologize for being sick, taking up their time and become very child-like and submissive for some reason. I am not me, when I am in these situations, especially at one in the morning, feeling terrible and wanting to get some sleep.

The doctor comes, he tells me that ‘yes; I have a severe allergic reaction, they’ll give me some benadryl, prednisone and pepcid to take care of it. GREAT, I think, I can go home and get some sleep. We go through what I’ve eaten or anything new in my environment and determine it was probably the fish I ate earlier. I’ve never had hives, but I had a steroid shot once for a spider bite that got as big as a baseball. Steriods, although not nice, are great and I know they work quickly.

I also have very small veins, and this becomes the next issue. Again, I apologize for having small veins. She tries one IV and it’s too big, she goes and gets a baby sized IV and it goes in just fine. I sit there and something goes in, I feel it moving in my arms. Next is the benadryl. “This will be stronger that the over-the-counter stuff, you’ll feel it more quickly she says”. I feel it, initially it feels good.

Suddenly, I realize I am unable to breathe. “XXXX, I can’t breathe I think”. I manage to mutter something about this. I try to take the next breath and I can’t. I fall to the side, everything goes black, and I hear a high pitched ringing in my ear. I feel warm liquid drip down the back of my throat. My lungs feel like they are filling with water. Then suddenly, I’m lucid again, “sorry, I say, it took me by surprise”. I’m trying hard to get back to them, get back in that room. For now there are three of them there. I can hear them talking about me, the nurse is shouting at me “talk to me, don’t fall asleep, say something”. I’m trying, but nothing comes out. XXXX, I think I’m dying, of all the things to die from, I’m going to die from a drug reaction, this is not good. I’m angry, I don’t want to die, I want to die another way, not this one and not NOW. I’m also aware of a massive pain in my chest, my heart feels like it’s exploding, then again it feels like ten men are standing on my chest weighing me down. This is not good, I think I must be having a heart attack. I’m too young, my kids are asleep at home. I don’t want to die. Rapidly, I’m taken and put on the EKG, those sticky patches are put on me, although it feels like someone else. All-the-while the nurse is talking to me, “everything’s going to be OK, you’ll be OK”. I am unable to reply. It is so surreal.

She tells me she’s giving me something else, I wish I could remember what it was. It’s going to help me. I can see them standing over me, running around and doing things. I hear her say she forgot to weigh me. My heart is racing and I hear something about cardia. Cardia-something, I’m convinced that I’ve had a massive heart attack. I’m beginning to come around a bit and I feel totally and utterly exhausted. I feel like I have or could sleep for a thousand years. I can hear the beeps, and feel the tight sensation of my blood pressure being taken. I sit waiting for the news, I’m sorry Mrs. Williams you have sustained a massive heart attack. It doesn’t come. It turns out that this was not a heart attack ( I shudder to think what one actually would feel like, as this was some of the worst pain I have ever had). My heart had started beating arrhythmically (sp?), and very rapidly and I had had a severe reaction to one of the drugs they gave me. It was not epinephrine as far as I’m aware. I’ve always been sensitive to drugs and once took a cold medication that caused me to black out.

I lie there for the next six hours, recovering from this ordeal. I call my husband who is asleep. He asks how I am, and I say “things are not good”. He has no idea what just happened and that’s I’m sitting there on the heart monitor.

I hear the psych consul talking to the patient next to me. He’s telling the doctor how he is bipolar, suicidal and, yes, has thoughts about harming himself or others. “Do you have a gun?”, the doctor asks, “Yes” he replies. Here we are me, a mom of two and a suicidal person wanting to harm someone. GREAT!! I watch and listen as the psychiatrists arrive and take him to a psychiatric hospital. He gets up and walks by my bed, he looks at me, “not feeling so good, eh?”. I nod my head and watch him go. Over the evening I listen to the other patients stories as I drift off into sleep.

Long story short, I’m back in the ER at one a.m. again the next morning, still severe allergic reactions, every joint in my body is inflamed, chest pain and I can’t breathe properly. Another nurse asks me if I have been taking any ‘recreational drugs’, me, got to be kidding. I leave feeling much better, after some blood tests and more drugs. I awake on Sunday morning unable to breathe properly and hives again all over my body, in fact one hive covers my entire left buttock down to my calf. Not again, I say, I call the doctor, “yes, go to the hospital immediately”. I’m sick of this, I’ve been having tachycardia all weekend, my chest hurts, I’m totally ‘drugged up” and just about had enough. I wake Monday morning and AGAIN, my lips and eyelids are swollen. I must go to the ER, AGAIN!! Now, up until this point I have never been in the ER in my life. This is now beyond annoying. I’ve explained my symptoms, told my stories, answered the same questions over again, and in some cases I’ve been treated kindly, others like a pain.

Luckily, I got an appointment with an allergist the same day, I gave six tubes of blood and other tests. I’m currently on six medications and am likely never to truthfully know the cause of this reaction. I must now carry an Epi-pen in case of emergencies. I’m not volunteering today, oddly enough I miss the hospital.

Now what did I learn from this? Not to eat fish, of course! But also as a future medical professional, I must always remember that often you meet a patient in a situation totally out-of-context with their normal life. Sometimes their reactions and responses can be uncharacteristic. I hadn’t washed or brushed my hair since Thursday and looked pretty awful, with a swollen face and dark circles around my eyes you’d have no idea who I really was. I didn’t want to be judged by my appearance, which I’m afraid we all do. I must also remember that patients can feel very lonely, I just wanted someone to talk to. In fact the best time I had was talking to the EMT who seemed interested in hearing about me and my kids. I really valued the extra ten minutes he took to talk to me, this I’m sure made me feel better, feel better about what was happening and that they actually cared. I hope that my experiences as a patient and empathizing with future patients can only help my intended career as a medical professional. Of course, this reminded me never, ever to take good health for granted!

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