On Mondays and Thursdays at my school, seniors are allowed to go out to eat for lunch. Today was Monday, so Jimmy and I made plans to get Thai food from a nearby Thai restaurant called Lemongrass near my school.

Jimmy needed to place the order for our food before picking me up at school, so that it would be ready when we got there. I told him to surprise me, but that I wanted something off the noodles/rice lunch menu. I also made sure that he knew exactly what my food allergies are, because one of the dishes they serve at the restaurant has cashews in it. I am allergic to cashews and pistachios, as far as I know.

He got me the Pad Thai for lunch, which was actually what I was leaning toward on the menu anyways. The description on the website says that it is “stir-fried thin rice noodles with chicken, shrimp, egg, bean sprout, green onion and ground peanuts.” It was delicious, although I could have done without the peanuts just because I didn’t really want that kind of crunch.

I didn’t get a chance to finish my meal during lunchtime, so I took it to history with me and finished it in the tech center while we were supposed to be working on a project about foreign and domestic policy of a country before World War II.

After history, math came around. Not long after class started, I started to get a headache. This wasn’t like any normal headache I’ve ever suffered before. No, it literally felt like my head was going to implode.¹ Although I hadn’t eaten anything that I’m allergic to, I recognized that I was having a reaction to something. I’ve never had that symptom before, but something just told me that it was an allergic reaction.

I remembered putting some Benadryl (generic allergy relief medication) in my purse, but I also remembered taking it out again. I prayed that I had put it back in as I fished around in my purse for the pills. Thankfully, I found two pills rather quickly, so I borrowed Lucy’s juice and swallowed them both.

Of course the relief doesn’t come instantly with medication like that, and naturally my headache got worse. I was at the point of literally pulling at chunks of my hair as if to keep my skull from falling in on itself. At this point, my math teacher paused in her lecture to have the class do an example, so I told her that I thought I was having an allergic reaction and asked if I could go to the office. She said I could, so I left the room.

Before going to the office, I decided to stop in the one-person bathroom in the next hall to check on things and moan to myself a bit. That walk to the bathroom felt like one of the longest in my life. I had abdominal pain like the worst period I’ve ever had. I think it took all my strength to walk to the bathroom.

When I stood up to leave the bathroom and go to the office, I happened to glance in the mirror and saw that my left eye was almost completely bloodshot. Blood must have been rushing to my head to make it feel the way it did.

When I got to the office, I asked if I had an Epi-Pen (a shot I’m supposed to give myself if I have an allergic reaction) in the office, even though I knew for sure that there wasn’t one there. While the secretary checked for me, I laid down on the bed in the school’s little clinic on the side of the office. I just wanted to curl up in the smallest ball possible, so that’s what I did. I laid there whining, “ow… ow… ow…”

The secretary got my mom on the phone, so I had to go over and talk to her. I asked if I could sit while I talked, but I don’t think she heard me. So there I was standing at the desk on the phone trying to explain to my mom what happened, and each second of standing just got worse and worse. After maybe half a minute of trying to explain, I said I thought I had to go throw up. My mom didn’t hear me so I repeated it, and again she did not hear me. Finally the secretary took the phone from me and I ran to the staff bathroom next to the office. There was no time to follow rules.

Thankfully, I didn’t actually vomit. It sure felt like I was going to, though. I went back to the clinic and laid down some more in the tiniest ball I could muster. Meanwhile, the secretary called 9-1-1 and they sent an ambulance to the school. I was so relieved when the paramedics walked in. So relieved in fact, that the Benadryl I had taken decided to kick in just then, and within a minute or two of their arrival, I was fine. It’s good to be safe, though!

I was lucky that I could breathe this time. In the past when I have had allergic reactions, the symptoms have been completely different, and have pretty much always included difficulty breathing. Waiting for medicine to work isn’t exactly an option when you can’t breathe.

By the way, my theory of what I reacted to is this. My meal had peanuts in it, and although I am not allergic to peanuts, they do have the same coloring as cashews. Perhaps a cashew ended up among the peanuts when they were grinding them to put in my meal, since they do serve one dish with cashews at that restaurant. However, these symptoms were completely different from any I’ve ever had to a cashew in the past. Maybe I’ll go to an allergist one of these days.

You know, Jimmy promised not to kill me.