You may think I went to great lengths to be alone with 4 firemen in their engine but I think that would be an unjust accusation. I certainly didn't expect 2 innocent bananas to pay off quite so well or as dramatically, but then we are talking about me, so what was I thinking! I suffer from allergic reactions to food. Not a lifelong condition, but a recent and life changing one. My first experiment with an anapen was not entirely what I expected and I hope never to use it again. Adrenaline makes you completely nuts, however, the rapidity of the attack left me no option. The Anapen, designed for easy self administration was a weapon in my shaking hands as I was, by then, so uncoordinated I could have taken down 3 dogs and a passerby in the street in an attempt to hit my leg. My husband did not need any coercion to administer the lifesaving adrenalin and enthusiastically took the "stab the pen in the leg" assignment, siezing the opportunity with a worrying glint . Fear numbs pain but not panic and trying to stab a fleeing object is not easy, apparently. My recovery expectations were unrealistically high,a life pattern and within 5 minutes I was a physical and emotional wreck. Adrenaline makes you panic/hysterical/nonsensical and unable to make a decision about left or right foot first. My entertainment rating was high as I insisted, first on an ambulance (panic state) then on being driven to the hospital,(hysteria) despite my daughter having called the paramedics. The ambulance was duly cancelled and they manouvered me into the car, left foot over right in a feat worthy of the paralympics. I made it as far as the first roundabout with teeth bared and my face pressed to the window manically looking for an escape hole. (hysterical state) It was decided by the rational person in the car that returning home to recall the suitably trained, stamina posessing paramedics was the sensible option. Within 5 minutes the Firebrigade screeched to the door en masse with stretchers and ressus gear. Mortified but barely lucid, my incoherently entertaining performance was treated with the tollerance of an adoring grandparent. This was befitting their average age, there was not one greek, or French god among them. The accompanying GP, not my usual call out champion, however, did not rate the performance and dismissed me as an overdramatic foreigner as, by then the adrenaline had physically controlled some of the anaphylactic symptoms and he assumed I was just enjoying the attention of Riberac's finest. Perhaps driven by the mind numbing boredom of fench rural life he sees a lot of women faking anaphylactic shock and perhaps my expectation of firemen is, again unrealistically, driven by the, I assumed, realistically filmed hollywood movie "Backdraught". However once his medical experience overtook his derision and he accepted that this was a multi repeat situation and I had in fact used the anapen, we were thrown in the fire engine and nee nawed to hospital at top speed. My husband and son drove behind and while freaked out by the lights they did enjoy the chase! Fortunately Perigueux hospital staff are quite used to me and were excellent, told me to stop talking, panicking and being hysterical, pumped me full of more drugs and left me to rant in solitude once I ceased to amuse them. Desperate to please, I reacted badly to the adrenaline which pushed my heart rate into orbit making them panic and abandon their coffee break. Fulled by cafe noir they were quick to administer more drugs which controlled my spiraling heartbeat but not my grasp on reality. I gamely soldiered on with the gamut of adrenaline side effects including hyperventillation and an all consuming skin burning sensation, a horrible Hiroshima effect but without the actual peeling. It all makes for an eventful thursday night and not willing to let the side down, I set the cardiograph monitor off enough to keep them on their toes all night and the bastards retaliated by keeping me there till 2.30pm the next day when I was unceremoniously thrown out on the arrival a more deserving 4 car pile up.
Generally euphoric on release and pumped with enough drugs to satisfy a heroin addict I usually feel great for weeks, but I suspect in an attempt to sedate me, they mixed some prozac in there as my usual post hospital housework purge eluded me. My naturally pale scottish skin benefits from a week long post attack steroid boost, giving it an almost cartoon jollyness I find quite attractive and local gossip of my "red lighted to hospital after an alcoholic binge" variety never fails to amuse me.
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