Anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction): Life-threatening allergic reaction when cells in the body’s respiratory system swell causing the victim to suffocate. The immediate treatment is the use of adrenalin (epinephrine) to counteract the effects- this is usually given as an injection.¹

It was a typically beautiful afternoon in St. Lucia. We had parked ourselves on a couple of lounge chairs near the pool bar and were soaking in the atmosphere.

Looking at our empty cups, I wandered over to the bar and noticed that the drink of the day was rum punch. I’m not a “punchy” guy, but the description listed at least 4 different fruits and 3 different liquors in the drink. It looked interesting so I asked for a couple glasses of the concoction.

The drink went down pretty easily and fairly quickly. We started dozing off again.

It must have been about 10 minutes afterwards that my nose started to itch and run a bit…as it does when my seasonal allergies kick in. I started sneezing.

Hmm. That was strange for my allergies to start up so suddenly. I looked around and saw that we were parked right beside a number of shrubs and so I figured that one of them must have just spewed some pollen in my direction. I tried to return to my nap.

Over the next half hour, my symptoms didn’t improve but instead marginally worsened. The sun was heating up and so we decided to return to the room to continue our nap there (this was our typical daily routine).

We fell asleep on the bed.

Maybe it was an hour into that nap that I realized that I was tossing around quite a bit. I opened my eyes and found that I couldn’t breath through my nose at all. I can’t remember a time in my past when I have been as severely congested. I had to breath through my mouth. Even with all of the congestion my nose was still running.

I sat up in bed. I was becoming a little concerned now.

That’s when I noticed that my lip felt a little itchy. Hmm. Not only my lip but one of my eyes. I touched my lip then my eye. My lip, then my eye started to swell.

It slowly started to dawn on me that I was undergoing more than a pollen allergy here.

I ran to the mirror and looked at myself. My lip was now almost twice it’s usual size (and it’s already large to begin with), and my eye looked like it was attempting to swell shut. The itchiness was continuing, but I was able to keep my hands off.

I forcibly inhaled and exhaled through my mouth a few times to see if my airway was constricting, but that seemed ok. I turned to The Girl and shook her awake.

“Hey, I think I’m in trouble!” I said.

“Huh?”

“I’m having an anaphylactic reaction to something,” I stammered out.

“To what?” She asked.

“I dunno, but I’m going to take one of our antihistamines and go outside for some air. If I don’t come back in 5 minutes come and find me.”

“Can you breath?” She asked still half asleep.

“Yeah through my mouth. Nothing is constricting there.”

“Ok.”

And as I went out onto the patio for what could have been my last glimpse of sun and surf ever, my love rolled over and went back to sleep.

My symptoms lasted for at least another 12 hours but were controllable with Tylenol Allergy. Thinking about what might have initiated the reaction, which was the worst Type I reaction I’ve ever had, I decided it must have been the rum punch.

Fruit skins have become more and more problematic for me over time. The raw skins of cherries, peaches, and apples will cause some mild oral itching and swelling for me. I’m assuming that the rum punch probably had blended skins in it and that’s what set things off.

Moral of this story: If I’m dying, be sure I really am before I wake The Girl.

Footnotes:

1. http://www.ect-hk.com/ect_glossary_bot.html [↩]