I'm still alive...

So on top of the mystery fevers (don't get me started), I have also been having some strange "allergic(?)" reactions over the last few months. Stop me if you've heard this one but... face swells, throat swells, vomiting, shakes, and general malaise that last for the rest of the day or longer... each time triggered by the slightest sip of alcohol. Four times this has happened with increasing intensity, all while my family physician shrugged. The fourth one, not a pretty sight, prompted me to see an allergist and cease and desist the use of alcohol, blood pressure medicine, vitamins, baby aspirin, and anything stronger than weak green tea. That was like eight weeks ago.

In the meantime I have taken just about every test they could think of. I have, pardon my frankness, collected every bodily excretion I produce shy of bottling my tears. Every time the results come back my allergist says "huh" and my family doctor says "(shrug, shrug) the test came back perfectly normal... sorry." Nothing. Bubkes. Nada.

Finally this week, after no reactions since shutting everything down, my allergist prescribed another test... drink a beer. At this point she assumes that it was my blood pressure medicine. "Don't plan anything Saturday afternoon, have your Epi Pen ready, and drink a beer." So this afternoon Michele dialed 9-1 and, her finger expectantly hovering over the other 1, I took my first sweet swallow of Oberon this summer. And I didn't die. Yet.

At some point this year is going to have to start to get easier for us... until then, I'll cautiously enjoying a cocktail... Epinephrine at the ready, hospital on speed dial, anxiously awaiting the next comical shrug from my crack medical staff... where's Dr. House when you need him?