Living with allergies: a cautionary tale

I don’t want to die like this. 

I rocked back and forth on the white hospital sheets with eyes closed. I had just thrown up, but the pain wouldn’t leave me. Saliva climbed the walls of my throat and strangled me in ebbs and flows, as if its hands were clenching and relaxing. Within me, my stomach fought to purge my body of what it perceived to be an invader with a throbbing knifelike jabs. 

I dug my nails into my skin, tracing white lines on a red canvas, hoping that in a demented way the damage that I inflicted on myself would help lessen my agony; I wanted what little control I could have over my misery.  

It was the day before I turned 13, and all I could remember thinking was that I wanted to become a teenager. 

Of course, as with all first-person narratives, you know I survived. What might surprise you is that that was just one of the many times I’ve been to the emergency room for the same reason. 

I have a life-threatening anaphylactic nut allergy. That means my reaction to nuts involves wheezing, abdominal pain and nausea. I have had it since I was born (even though I didn’t find out until I was 6 years old with an IV jammed in the back of my hand in a Shanghai hospital), and I will have it for the rest of my life.

When I was 4, I went to preschool with a little girl who also had severe nut allergies, but unlike me, she knew it, and her mother had taught all the other preschool parents about recognizing the signs for an allergic reaction. 

About a year later, in September 2004, I ate a Chinese moon cake that I later learned contained peanut oil. When I started having trouble breathing, my mom knew what to do and sent my dad to drive me to the nearest emergency room. This was my first exposure to nuts; as a young child, I had always avoided them because they smelled funny to me. 

I honestly can’t remember anything about that night except that my face burned and was “red as a lobster,” according to my dad, but what it did begin was a long series of visits to the allergist’s office. I remember that part. Allergy shots for each arm every two months and blood tests every six months, which meant a total of 14 shots per year. Let’s just keep in mind I was around 7 at this point. It was not fun. 

In addition, I found myself banned from a whole host of foods, not just peanuts. After a series of blood tests, my doctor discovered I was also allergic to wheat and dairy, although I later outgrew that allergy, but for the time being, I had to say farewell to pizza, cookies, cakes, ice cream …

A few years later, my parents took me to Asia again and decided I needed to see a zhong yi, which means “Chinese doctor.” After hours of having my hand massaged and being asked increasingly personal questions in Chinese, my parents and I left with bagfuls of shriveled dead plants. My mom boiled them, and the resultant brew was a foul-smelling black concoction that looked exactly like poison. I drank it three times a day until the stuff ran out, which took far too long.

Afterwards, my parents heard about my first-grade teacher’s daughter, who had had her non-life threatening allergy cured by a special diet that, of course, excluded everything that tastes good but is bad for your body. Not only was it a failure, but combined with the disgusting Chinese medicine, that was probably the worst year of eating in my entire life. 

Years later, I am still undergoing this cycle of hope for a cure followed by disappointment. Last spring, my allergist told me about an opportunity to participate in a clinical trial of a new treatment for peanut allergies called desensitization therapy. Although I did go in for screening to see if I qualified, I rejected the offer because it meant that even if the process worked, which it did for less than half of patients with life-threatening allergies, it would require me to eat one peanut every day for the rest of my life. 

Scattered between these cycles of hope and disappointment, of course, are accidental “contacts with allergens,” as it’s said in medical-ese. What’s saddest is that they are so common I don’t even remember individual events anymore. 

The time I accidentally tried that nut cookie in the Beijing Airport blends with the day I went to a restaurant and didn’t clarify with the chef what my allergy was, until I don’t remember anything but the raw emotions: Fear. Anguish. Regret. Hatred toward myself for not knowing better. 

I’m not alone. More than 2 percent of American children now suffer from peanut or tree nut allergies, and it’s important to recognize the implications of this figure. Although plastering hot pink “Nut Free Zone” signs throughout the school is a good start, it isn’t enough. Many students still don’t understand how severe allergies can be, and I’ve seen countless people blatantly eating nuts in supposedly nut-free classrooms.

The problem is that unless you, someone in your family or one of your close friends has an allergy, chances are you don’t think about allergies. You’re the person who eats a peanut butter sandwich and proceeds to touch all the doorknobs of your classrooms for the next three periods without washing your hands. I know you don’t mean to hurt anyone, but in this situation, ignorance could kill.

Another consideration is the number of kids with allergies, which has more than tripled in the last decade. This trend is likely to continue, which makes awareness all the more important. People with allergies can be careful, but accidents happen, and it’s crucial that the rest of the population does their part as well. 

One example is California teen Natalie Giorgi, who went to a summer camp and died there the night before she was supposed to return home. Even though her parents had always watched what she ate and she knew what to do in case of an accident, it wasn’t enough. After giving her a dose of Benadryl, an antihistamine that counters the effects of allergic reaction, and three epinephrene injections, doctors pronounced Natalie dead. 

When I read stories like this, it scares me almost more than anything else. The only difference between Natalie and me is that Natalie’s dead. I can’t be any more careful than she was. 

Anaphylaxis is an axe (in my defense, that pun was an accident), over my head held by a single skein of thread. Every time I eat, it’s a leap of faith. I wonder if I will regret putting that chocolate chip cookie in my mouth, because maybe somewhere, a bit of peanut butter scraped the side of the machine the cookie was processed in. I wonder if the waiter really understands the severity of my allergy, and if I should trust him or her to tell the chef about it. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not asking for pity. This is the hand dealt to me, and I’ve learned to live with it. But do me a favor — please put away those Corn Nuts. They make me nervous.