Trigger warning: Description of severe allergic reaction
Pitch black, 2am Californian night. Each time a truck charges in the oncoming lane I’m blinded. It takes all my focus just to keep the car in between the white lines.
“Gary, I can barely see”, I turn to my partner who is fast asleep with his head on the window. Lucky man, my head is scrambled, no chance I should be behind a wheel. Ten hours drive, five cups of petrol station coffee on the back of an all night stint in a Vegas casino. All night in the Orleans hotel shooting craps, playing cards and drinking cocktails, I am in no state for a long haul drive through the night. I think about waking Gary for him to take the wheel but decide to give him another half hour. Half an hour I can manage without killing us both. I open the window, light a cigarette and turn up my driving music. Mainly to keep me alert but also to give Gary a nudge in the awake direction.
Eyes back on the road and a sharp impulse in my mind nearly makes me swerve. A ghostly face appears ten feet ahead. I tell myself it’s not real, just a sleep-deprived, caffeine induced hallucination.
“Gary, wake up”. Both hands frozen to the wheel I daren’t let go to nudge him.
“Gary wake up! I’m seeing things mate we need to stop.” He agrees.
We confirm our distance to San Francisco as more ghostly figures appear on the road. One is a child, one is a white mask stretched out across the tarmac. Hallucinations, but for now, I can keep a lid on the situation. Gary’s awake, the visions aren’t real, I tell myself to keep it together until we reach the next gas station.
A note on our travels up to this point, we started in Vegas a week before and immersed ourselves fully in the local ‘culture’. 99 cent burgers and liquor roulette 7 days straight. Since we left Sin City, all sustenance on the road has come from coffee, street tacos and cigarettes.
Putting all that behind us we intend to start fresh in California. The Sunshine State know for good outdoor living and fresh Cali oranges. With this in mind, we pull into the gas station and decide to buy some fruit, two polished-red apples and a banana each. First bit of health we’ve had since crossing the Atlantic. I hurriedly eat my banana and a single bite of apple when I start to feel sick. I walk to the front of the car and try to be sick. I feel the need to vomit but can’t seem to throw up as the pain in my stomach intensifies. After half an hour, shivering and bent double in pain I urge Gary to call an ambulance. Despite the local’s mistrust Gary manages to borrow a phone to call 911. I can barely talk when the ambulance arrives, it’s the most pain I’ve experienced in my life.
“How bad is the pain between 1 -10?”
“10!” – gasp – “Fuck” – breathe “I don’t want hospital, think it’s really bad wind”.
A small crowd gathers as they help me onto a stretcher. Gary’s turn to panic, the paramedics bark at him to follow in the car.
Sirens blaring, the paramedics hook me up to an I.V. Immediately this makes me feel better, I’m starting to think it’s just a lack of sleep and resent myself for wasting their time.
In the hospital my mysterious abdominal pain is undiagnosable by several doctors and medical staff. They run tests and attach electrodes telling my to rest. The pain has all but subsided and I laugh with Gary about our ridiculous predicament.
“Great start to the trip boys.”
“Can’t get any worse at least!”
It’s nearing 3.30am and I feel near enough ready to hit the road, Gary can finish the last hour of driving. We’re just about ready to make a move when Gary notices a change of colour in my face. A doctor double-takes as he walks past my room. He comes in looking perplexed as my face starts to balloon in allergic reaction. I feel dizzy and drunk as my eczema flares up all over my hands and feet. I am moving in slow motion as two more doctors rush into the room. My forearms are covered in hives, horrible red growths sprouting up in a blistering rash. My eyes start to close over as the swelling increases, doctor places a breathing mask over my face as everything closes in. Panic. This feels sick. My tongue has doubled in size and I am struggling to breathe.
‘How should I breathe?’
I try to ask but cannot connect brain with words. Doctor names the gas that I am being forced to breathe through the face mask. Fuck. I’m going under for sure. Fear sets in, I won’t be conscious. I won’t be awake. I try to resist but can’t move my head. Gasping, my throat is so tight I can barely breathe. But the gas is not to knock me out. Ventolin, my semi-conscious brain connects the dots. Gas to aid my breathing.
All is chaos around me, but I feel a sense of calm. My only job is to breathe. I am in the care of professionals. Let the doctor’s do their work. Let them save my life. All I can do is keep calm and breathe.
A wave of sleep comes over me as I feel my heart slowing. Maybe it will stop.. A surly, silent doctor opens an intubator next to me. No, I hope he doesn’t use that. I fight against the oncoming darkness.
No calm, don’t sleep. I’m not letting him use that claw thing on me, fight against it, stay awake. Whether or not it made any difference to the outcome I make a decision to stay alive.
Relief, I can feel my chest loosening. My allergic swelling is abating and my tongue goes smaller allowing me to inhale freely
again. The doctors leave all bar one who explains to me I’ve experienced an anaphylactic shock. He hands me a leaflet.
Anaphylaxis – severe allergic reaction where the bodies immune system goes into ‘overdrive’.
Now I can rest.
Sleep for 6 hours until midday. Disorientated and dreamy, I thank the doctor and stagger out into the Sun. I find Gary in the car park asleep in the driver’s seat. I can let him rest.
Slump into the passengers side feeling in awe, lucky, afraid and on top of the world. I look into the holding compartment in the passenger side door and there, like a poster for some kind of dark Disney film is my adversary.
A red apple with one single, perfect bite taken from it’s poison flesh.
Tom Rigby
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