Nefarious Nuts

I am one of those people who will keel over with the just the slightest contact with a nut.  Novelists of the suspense and thriller type books love people like me.  Allergies - the Achilles heel, the secret way to knock off a character you don’t want around, with a simple and deadly ingredient snuck into just about anything at all.  Allergic reactions have been great fodder for movies and books alike.  The movie “Hitch” used a seafood allergy to great comic relief, with Will Smith’s face doubling in size, his eyes disappearing into the swollen mass.  In the Da Vinci Code, a bad guy kicks the dust, literally because of dust-peanut dust!    


Can it really happen like that?  Are people really that allergic?  Yes, we are!  Despite it’s severity, I can get lazy about my allergies, I forget to ask if there are nuts in something because I generally know when they are.  This last week, in a lazy moment, I didn’t think to ask.  I strayed from my usual mocha in the morning to a fancier switched up mocha.  I took one sip and much to my dismay, the itching started.  It crept up the back of my throat and into my ears in the worst way that you can’t reach.  I thought, “surely not, this can’t be an allergic reaction”.  But as my windpipe began to swell and swallowing became difficult I thought, “Well here we go again”.  


I have been through this before, too many times in fact.  I know the drill, down some Benadryl, much like Hitch.  If that doesn’t work, whip out the epi-pen (a great wallop of epinephrine).  The lesson to be learned here is – don’t take it for granted what you think may, or may not be in your food.  Keep a vigilant eye out at Salad bars and ice cream shops.  For some reason, they tend to keep the nuts in a place where they easily spill off the spoon into the other ingredients.  Watch out for those traveling terrors.  Be wary of fried foods which may have been fried in nut oils.  Above all make sure that if you have an allergy like this that you keep Benadryl on hand or in severe cases, if prescribed by your doctor, an epi pen.  Like those good ol’ boy scouts, be prepared!