I was laid off yesterday. More on this later.
In the past couple of weeks, I had convinced myself I was allergic to shrimp. So, it was off to the allergist.
I have gone to a doctor plenty of times convinced I had some ailment which I did not. I imagine it comes a lot from my parents who dealt with a lot of sick progeny who were typically not me. So when it was me—say, the time I got a weird, puffy bug bite or the time I stabbed my hand with a pencil—it was a trip to the emergency room, just like any of the other kids. It didn't matter how minor it actually was. So now, any time I suspect something may be wrong, I visit the doctor.
The visit typically begins a long story. I don’t know if that is how most people start off a doctor appointment, but it is how I start one. “Well,” I begin, usually with a sort of a high-pitched intonation. “Well…” and then we take a nice little journey through an anecdote without a lot of the salient information but with a dash of unnecessary specifics.
“Well,” I began (after some runaround with the receptionist and the insurance card and the referral I was told I didn’t need but I did need but it was okay because they were going to fax it over). “Well, I was eating shrimp at this event we had at work where they were giving us some free food and felt funny afterwards. And later I was eating Chinese food that I had ordered in and I felt funny again. I don’t know how to describe funny. Like. Unusual.” The doctor asked, “How long ago was this?” I had no idea. A week or so. Maybe a month. No, that doesn’t sound right.
The doctor asked a few more questions about what “funny” meant (you know, funny. Not like I usually feel. Not like I felt before). Then, I took a breathing test with a little Asian nurse. There was definitely miscommunication. “What you’re going to do is…” And then the test wouldn’t read right. “No, you’re not doing it right!” “I don’t know what you’re asking me to do!” I felt like she was trying to teach me to drive for the first time. “Breathe, breathe, breathe!” “I have no more breath!” “That’s because you’re doing it wrong!” I am pretty sure she jumped up and down at one point.
Sidebar anecdote: it brought up the memory of a visit to the eye doctor in which the technician pleaded with me to open my eye wider to take a picture of it with some expensive machine and I crossly protested that I could not. “Please try!” “This is as far as they open!” Anyway. I’m pretty good at math, so it balances.
Somewhere in there, I got something usable for the doctor to see (whose door was open the whole time and I am sure could hear the whole conversation). And then came the pinpricks of allergens. One of them was “cockroach” which is disgusting one on level already. But then I found myself playing out this story in which it wasn’t the shrimp but a cockroach in my Chinese food that had caused the reaction and that garlic sauce was really cockroach bath sauce.
It wasn’t.
And I’m not allergic to shrimp. At least not by the first round of testing. I am allergic to cats and grass and tree pollen and a bunch of other things he mentioned that I hope I wasn’t supposed to memorize (what’s a tree plantain?).
So, in addition to joining the growing ten whatever percent of unemployed Americans in this economy, I am also joining the ranks of (judging by the patients I witnessed flitting in and out of the office, greeting the receptionist by name) nebbish (white) men with medically diagnosed allergies. Great.
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