Meet my nemesis...GRRRRRR

looks pretty cute, doesn't it? damn shrimp!

Since I've been sick, I haven't really eaten much. As a result, I've lost some more weight and the family has gotten worried. Last night, in an attempt to do something sweet for me, while out to dinner with my brother and step father, my mom sent me some miso soup and California rolls with our chauffeur.

The standard recipe for California rolls is rice, sea weed, avocado, cuccumber, and kingcrab. Ocassionally people vary the recipe by putting sesame or poppy seeds around the rolls but usually restaurants don't deviate from the recipe without at least modifying the name.

Well, the fine people of Vetros thought they were doing the world a favor by substituting kingcrab for shrimp all the while leaving the name as is and not making a note of it on the menu.

As you may or may not know, I am EXTREMELY allergic to seafood. All except, salmon, flounder, bass, and kingcrab in limited amounts. I can't even eat tuna. Depending on the type of fish, my reactions can be anywhere from mild (swollen lips, hives) to severe (asphyxia). I tend to have the strongest reactions to shellfish.

Last night I wasn't hungry but I had eaten nothing all day so I forced myself to eat. I started with the sushi because the soup was too hot. After I ate the first roll, I thought it tasted kinda' funny but I thought it was because it had regular soy sauce (I normally use low sodium) and because of my cold. I took a bite of the second roll and that's when my mom called to ask me how the food was and I mentioned that it tasted somewhat funny to me. She was surprised so she asked the waiter if there was anything out of the ordinary in the roll. He said no, just the standard rice, seaweed, cuccumber, avocado and shrimp. SHRIMP.

When she said "Ana there is shrimp", I dropped the phone and I ran to the medicine cabinet to get my allergy medication to slow down the reaction so that I may have time to get to the hospital but there wasn't any time. By the time I made it back downstairs I was throwing up incontrollably and my insides were swelling up. A minute later I was on the floor unable to breathe.

Luckily, our housekeeper, and the chauffeur were around and Candida, who knows about my food allergies, had heard me scream when I dropped the phone because they were around when I fell and knew that they had to take me to the hospital and call my mom straight away who hadinstinctively left the restaurant for the hospital when the waiter said shrimp.

Last night I almost died. Literally. Had it taken them one more minute to get me to the hospital I wouldn't have made it. By the time we got there, my mom says that I was blue, that my lips were swollen beyond recognition, my eyes were chilling in the back of my head and that my entire body was having spasms. The 4 shots I was given saved my life. Literally.

A few hours later I was back home recovering. This time, not only from my cold but from the pain that the reaction left me with. Even today, I woke up with a fever from the cold, bruises on both of my arms because of the shots and the fall and sore insides (muscles, throat, etc).

People underestimate how serious food allergies can be; but they are VERY serious. I hadn't had a reaction in years because I am always so careful of what I eat; however, even when I did get them back in the day, before I realized it was an allergy, my reactions werent' so severe. My intolerance gets progressively worse and I refuse to die because of something like a shrimp!

But because someone varied a recipe and didn't make a note of it, I nearly died.

Not a good way to spend a Wednesday night...