the long way to recovery

thank god for small favors.

shandy was having difficulty with her teeth last thursday, so i took it upon myself to see to it that she gets herself checked. we were dropped off by zoey at med city, in ortigas, to look for a dentist. shandy was in pain... and i accompanied her, not knowing that i would need medical assistance myself.

i was just asking about their allergy specialist when they told me that they had an emergency consultant. now, my momma told me never to go near the emergency room unless it was a real emergency--note: life and death situations. i kind of gave up and thought, oh well, there's always the weekend. and truth be told, i only had a couple of thousand bucks with me then. not enough for a consultation with a specialist.

as shandy went into the observation room, i started to panic because i was having difficulty breathing already. i kept thinking, maybe it was just because of going up the long stairway to the second floor. maybe i was tired. maybe i drank too much coffee. but none of those ever affected me before. i take the train home. i take long flights! i do drink a lot of coffee and i'm always tired. i sent an sms to shandy that i will be in the emergency room if she needed me.

the doctor had his mask on. he was thinking that i had measles. well, turns out that i was having a severe hypersensitivity reaction (read: allergy). oh man! what i wouldn't give to have an ice bath at that time. i was so darned itchy and the only relief i had was scratching intensely! he said that he needed to inject me with a serum to decrease the swelling. i agreed. after signing a few forms, the nurse injected me with something called dipenhydramine. ethanolamine-antihistaminergic. in short, i was gonna be sedated, crazy and less itchy.

i loved the idea. it was actually fun to be sedated. but not entirely cos i had to miss work. i felt really bad cos of that. the reason why i was so lethargic all along was because of the allergy attack i was having. it was great that shandy had to have her tooth pulled or else, i would have wound up short of breath in the train and no one could have helped me. i asked my mom to pick me up from the hospital. man were we drained! well, i was... she was just plain happy that she had an excuse not to go to work, i guess.