So, you know how you have a lot to do when there’s less than two weeks before Christmas? And then your kid gets a cold so bad that he throws up when he coughs because he’s so full of mucus? And then your dog gets a massive bladder infection and ear infection? Oh, and you have to fly to a black-tie, corporate party in Atlanta because your husband’s company just KNOWS you hate to fly? Yeah, me too.
I don’t know about you, but I was able to hold it together with all that stress…especially because I got some Xanax to help me get through the flight. The flight which had me so crippled with fear that I could barely function.
On the way to Atlanta on Saturday, the medicine helped a lot, until we hit turbulence. When my husband saw me holding on tightly to my tray table, he ordered me a vodka and cranberry. That drink was, without a doubt, the best drink I have ever had…until he ordered me a second one. One-and-a-half Xanax and two drinks. What plane?
When we arrived, we heard from the dog sitter that the dog was doing okay, my mom told me that my son was hanging in there, and I had lived through the flight. Things were going great!
Until after the party when my right wrist started itching. I silently thanked my mother for passing me the genes for spider veins and sensitive skin and I chalked it up to a cheap bracelet I had been wearing.
But, by yesterday morning I knew it wasn’t just sensitive skin. I had hives. If you have never had the pleasure of having hives, let me describe it for you. It’s like being covered with mosquito bites…everywhere. A thousand of them. On your scalp, your eyes, inside your ears, your shoulders, your elbows, your forearms, your hands, your stomach, your crotch, your thighs, your knees, your shins, your ankles and, my personal favorite, the soles of your feet. I was scratching so much that my husband said I looked like a dog…with fleas…and bedbugs.
The concierge brought me some Benadryl, but by the time we got to the airport yesterday I was feeling miserable. While everyone else was printing their boarding passes, I was all, “Hey Delta dude, is there a medical clinic up in here?”
There was. It was upstairs next to the USO, where there were military personnel all over the place. Then I was all, “Hey folks, thanks for risking your lives and protecting my family, but can you get out of my way because I have HIVES!” They were happy to oblige, likely because they thought I was crazy as I kept taking off my shoes to scratch the bottom of my feet. Also, I may have slightly resembled a leper.
The doctor immediately gave me a shot of steroids, a pack of Prednisone and then asked me if I realized that my blood pressure was 160/104. Really? Maybe that’s because I’m agitated and want to tear my own skin open and I would rather take off all my clothes and wriggle around on a bed of nails or rub up on the scratchy side of a velcro rug than be here talking to you.
The doctor assumed that the hives were from the Xanax, so I had to white-knuckle it all the way home. And when we flew through clouds for a good five minutes and I couldn’t see anything out the window and we were flying through “rough air”, I’m sure that I no longer looked like a dog.
Because this chick? Was sweating like a pig.
I’m not sure why, but lately I have been reminiscing a lot. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s the holidays. Or, maybe it’s because I’m getting on a plane tomorrow and am fairly certain of my impending death.
No matter the reason, I have mostly been thinking about my old friend, Barbie. Barbie, Mel and I were inseparable. Here is a picture of the three of us as kids…before things turned ugly.
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