Pardon the interruption in this blog’s usual chatter for an emergency that got the hunky EMS guys to carry me away…
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\nYep, that’s right — yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, I had a sudden, serious medical emergency that required the local medics to respond, care for me, and take me to the hospital.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
Sunday was a bright and beautiful day. I attended an annual picnic with some neighbors and friends. Of course, my partner didn’t go. He never goes to social events. Ever.<\/p>\n
People at the picnic were raving about how tasty the burgers were. I got one hot off the grill. Built my own hamburger, complete with bun… and that was it. Yep, I’m a rather plain kinda guy. I can’t eat condiments like mustard, ketchup, or relish, or other add-ons like onions, tomatoes, chili, or such. Those condiments and add-ons aren’t compatible with my chronic intestinal disease.<\/p>\n
I digress… so I tasted this “tasty” burger, and it was pretty good. While visiting with neighbors, I finished the burger and was munching on some chips when I felt a funny tingling in my throat. I thought perhaps my throat was dry. I grabbed a bottle of water and began to drink, when the tingling sensation tightened and my throat began to swell up. I was getting lightheaded and dizzy. I knew that I was having a life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis<\/a>. <\/p>\n How did I know? Unfortunately, it has happened to me twice before. Once when I drank wine, and another time when I ate some mustard. In each case, I learned that I am seriously allergic to something in wine and mustard of any kind. I can’t come near the stuff.<\/p>\n Before I passed out, I signaled someone to run to my house and ask my partner for my Epipen, which is a self-injectable device that injects a quick dose of epinephrin, a drug used to combat the symptoms of this serious allergic reaction. Like a flash, he hit me with it, and soon thereafter, the medics arrived in response to a call to 9-1-1.<\/p>\n Bless ’em, they really care and work hard. They transported me, lights and sirens blaring, to the hospital. I was treated (with adrenalin and oxygen) and they kept me for several hours to keep an eye on me. My regular doctor stopped by and was pleased that I caught it so quickly and that I was recovering. My partner rode in the ambulance with me, and waited by my side, worried and concerned. Six siblings and a bunch of nieces and nephews also rallied around. When the hospital doc said that I was well enough to be released, my big sister took my partner and me home and we were met by other family members who almost carried me to bed.<\/p>\n What was the cause of this problem? I found out later that one of the “secret ingredients” in the burgers was ground mustard. It’s used as a spice. Who would have known that even just a little bit of a spice like that could be enough to cause such a major allergic reaction and potentially kill me? Glad I was where I was and had people around to help, and our EMS system is so responsive and well-trained.<\/p>\n BTW, no issues at the hospital with my partner. They treated him as if he were my legal spouse. Kept him informed, helped him to understand what happened, and how to care for me when we got back home.<\/p>\n Life is short: … and could have been shorter. Whew!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pardon the interruption in this blog’s usual chatter for an emergency that got the hunky EMS guys to carry me away…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}