A Little Piece of Pineapple Square.

I was running late with the salads. Hadn`t saran wrapped everything. I wasn`t ready for lunch. My boss, Linda, offers me a snickerdoodle. I asked her, Lyn, can I eat that? She says, Oh yeah, there`s no nuts in it. So I eat the snickerdoodle. Not even half an hour later, she`s cutting up this pineapple square that her mum made the night before. She pries it out of the pan saying, Oh, Nellie, I don`t think you used any grease! She tries it, makes a face, offers me a piece. I don`t even like pineapple. I took it to be polite. It was terrible. I hope she never serves that pineapple square to anyone. No one will eat it.

But I ate a piece. Not even three seconds later, my mouth gets itchy. I feel it in my tongue and the roof of my mouth and my lips. I say, Lyn, what was in those squares? Lyn says, pinapple. (I`m not using quotation marks because my computer`s in french accents and I can`t find the stupid things). I must have been making a face because I repeated myself and then she clues in. Her face changes. She says, Oh, come to think of it, there`s walnuts. I chopped them myself. I told her I had to go. I told her I needed my Benedryl. I told her I`d be back. I left my jacket and forgot to change my shoes. I had my epipen in my bag but not my Benedryl and I always take Benedryl first because usually that solves the problem and I`m alright. I hate needles. I was avoiding the Epipen. They`re expensive to replace. I didn`t feel I needed it. But I also haven`t swallowed a nut since I was two years old (or so my mom says). And so I needed it. Chantal. In denial. I told myself, everything`s fine. Just take the Benedryl.

It took me three minutes to drive home. I drove slower than I usually do. I didn`t speed. I wasn`t impatient. By the time I got there I could barely swallow the Benedryl. Like, it took effort to swallow anything. This was new to me. I`m used to a tightening of my airways, not not being able to swallow. So I texted David and he happened to be working nearby. He asked if he could do anything. I said, probably not. I phoned my mom at work, not because she could do anything, really, but just so she knew. I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, Epipen out of the case, laying on the floor beside me. Evie jumped on me and I pushed her away. Stupid dog. As I was on the phone with her, David called my cell and thus I had a conversation with both of them at the same time on separate phones. David asked if I needed a ride. Mum told me I should go to the hospital. At first I said no to both options. I was fine. I fingered my Epipen.

It was established through that rather haphazard phone call(s) that David would drive me to the hospital. He showed up within a few minutes and spun out of the driveway. He ran a red light and drove faster than I do in a hurry. It freaked me out, that he was driving fast. I, A) didn`t want to get into an accident whilst I was already dying and B) didn`t like to be reminded that something was wrong. I focused on breathing. I felt slightly nautious, but willed myself to not throw up in David`s car. That would be incredibly embarrassing, I told myself. He asked me how I was. Not well, I told him. I felt it in my chest, in my stomach. A forboding sense of something not right. Something in my body was not right. Wrong. I try to focus on what he`s saying. Something about he police. The police! David, I say, David, slow down! You`ll get a ticket! No, he says. He tells me they`d escort him, because I`m dying. I have yet to admit to myself that I`m dying. I`m not dying, I`m simply reacting. They wouldn`t escort you, I tell him, it`s not like I`m giving birth.

We get to City Emergency and by then I can feel it in my eyes and my lips. My lips were slightly itchy, not really swelling but threatening to. My eyes, just itchy enough to rub. To annoy. To notice. I told the lady at the front desk, the young woman with her brown hair back in a stylish ponytail, matter of fact, what was going on and to my surprise, (I thought she`d make me sit in Emergency for awhile, there always seems to be this aweful long wait) she stood up and said, follow me. And so I did. She didn`t look back as she walked and I was worried that I`d heard her wrong. That I wasn`t supposed to be following her at all, but then she turned and smiled. I got my own room, with a curtain and everything and she handed me this hospital gown, told me I could keep my bra and bottoms on. I stripped after she closed the curtain, had a little trouble tying the gown, finding the front and doing the shoulder clasps. Then the next nurse came in. She told me I had to take my bra off. Thanks for the false hope nurse number one.

So nurse two is hooking me up, with all those sticky pads connected to wires that they attatch in various places on your chest. She`s lifting my gown to do this, to put one right under my boob. The curtain`s slightly open and an East Indian guy is sitting on another bed across the room, watching me the whole time. I was like, thanks guy. Thanks alot. I tried to sneer, but I must not have done a very good job.

She`s asking me questions and writing everything down. She wants to know time slots, how I`m feeling, how I`m breathing. I`m feeling good, considering. My ears are feeling tight now though. Getting plugged. My hairline`s itchy. My breathing`s better than I thought it would be, I tell her. I`m still waiting for the benedryl to kick in. I`m still waiting for this to be a false call, like it usually always is. A waste of their time, a waste of mine. I don`t know what all she wants to hear. What I should tell her, what`s important or relevant. Like the fact that I have to pee. That`s probably not so relevant, so I don`t tell her.

A SIAST girl comes in, curly brown hair. She`s pretty, and slightly chubby. You can tell she doesn`t know where she`s supposed to be. She introduces herself, not to me but to the nurse taking all the information I can give her. I tell her I have a friend named Kaylee, which is a lie, cause Kaylee and I aren`t friends anymore. Ha. She smiles at this, not really wanting to acknowledge me. I cough.

Nurse two asks me if I had a cough before I came in. No, I say. Well, I correct, I have asthma. I then explain it`s mild asthma, how often I take my puffer and that I was not experiencing any asthma problems that day. She nods. She`s standing. She`s left the room. SIAST girl looks at me and then hastily follows nurse two. She`s wearing an EMT uniform but is definitely not comfortable. Not yet. Soon I`m coughing harder. Big, whooping phlegm coughs, but it`s not phlegm and I don`t know what I`m coughing up or why. I want them to come in and make it stop. I`m getting worse, I know this, but these symptoms are entirely new. I`ve never reacted this bad before. I don`t know what comes next. I don`t want to know.

Nurse three. She appears swiftly on my right. She`s holding my arm and asking me questions. The same questions the first two asked. I`m patient with them, although I wonder why they couldn`t just relate the information to each other. Why each new person had to bother me. I coughed throughout the explanation. Then nurse two is putting an IV in my left hand. My instinct when I cough is to cover my mouth. To cough into my elbow or SOMETHING, but she`s trying to stick a needle into my left hand and there`s that clippy thing they stick on your finger on my right hand and if I move too much it beeps but I`m coughing and coughing and soon there`s more people, maybe five, a guy. He`s older, he introduces himself as the doctor, though he doesn`t do anything that I see.

They`re all standing around me. Within five minutes my breathing has gone from slightly strained to wheezing. I couldn`t take a breath in and every breath out was a cough, cough, unpolite cough into open air as I couldn`t move an arm to find an elbow and I`m trying to apologize with my eyes. To say sorry for being so impolite and unheigenic but they`d understand, they put the IV`s there, they`re the reason I can`t cover my mouth. I`m starting to panic, I feel my face turn red and the tears are running uncontrollably down my cheeks. Cough cough, wheeze, cough. I`m afraid. The Benedryl isn`t kicking in. Why aren`t they doing anything, why are they just standing there? Nurse...four (?) is telling the doctor I`m not wheezing very badly yet. I want to tell her that`s not true but *wheeezeee* I can`t *cooouugghh*. Does she watch a lot of people die? How bad is bad?! I`m looking at her and looking at him and looking at nurse two and then I don`t know who to look at and all I can do is cough.

SIAST girl comes in. She`s putting on blue gloves. I want to tell her I don`t care if she`s wearing gloves or not, but maybe it`s for her safety. Hm. Then she`s about to give me a needle but nurse two comes in and tells her that one`s too big. Ì don`t care. I don`t care if that stupid needle has to stick all the way to my bone, give me something, I`m dying. My eyes are pleading and apologizing and streaming. That would not have been a graceful death, let me tell you that.

She switches needles, my eyes are blurring, I`m not really looking. Someone gives me oxygen. That tube that sticks uncomfortably in your nose until you get used to it and forget it`s there. In the shoulder. A slight prick, she tells me. They all back off, watch my stats. I`m still coughing but within half a minute, not so much. Then I can breathe. Not wholeheartedly, not delicously gulping breaths, but I can breathe. I`m thankful, relieved. Thanks, I tell Kaylee. She`s relieved too.

They tell me I`ll feel my heart beat, fast. Tell me it`s normal, it`s helpful. It still felt weird. To have my heart go faster than I can beat my djembe. I laid there as they cleared the room. It was over, apparently. I was breathing now. Nurse three asks if there`s someone in the waiting room. Someone they can call in. My friend, I say. What`s her name? she asks. It oddly seemed very important that she know my friend is male. He, I say. His name is David. Alright, she says, I`m going to get David.

My ears weren`t plugged anymore, I could breathe and I wasn`t crying. I knew my face wasn`t as red. David came in a minute or so later, faster than I thought he would. Hey, he says. He looks very concerned. You look terrible, he tells me. Thanks, I say. Moments later my mum runs in from the other side of the curtain. She`s much more panicked than I was. I think mothers just have that right, hey?

You look horrible! she tells me. Thanks, I say. Then nurse two comes in and reassures both of them that I had looked much worse. Thaaanks, I say. I don`t know what they`re giving me through the IV but as she hooks the next dose up I notice that my fingers are blue verging on purple. I ask her if that`s normal. Apparently, it is. She asked if that was a problem, tried to explain it was alright. I tell her it is, that I was just being observant. She says my toes are most likely blue as well, though I was wearing socks and didn`t care to bend to check. I`m getting sleepy. She knows this, does a little observing of her own. I guess getting sleepy is normal too.

They have to keep me in the hospital for four hours for observation. Before I left the house I had grabbed knitting and a book and my journal. I so expected this to be a false alarm, as that`s all I`ve ever had, really. I thought I`d have quite a bit of time to kill, while they watched me. I realized, that for the next four hours I won`t be able to do anything, my hands were pinned, with needle and clippy thing. It`s a tattle tale, that clippy thing. She`s moving, it says. She`s moving too much, it beeps.

I can`t keep my eyes open. My head droops. I feel bad because David and my mom are both there beside me. My mom standing as she came second and David sitting, on my left. They`re both watching me. I`m fine, I say. I tell them they can go home. I`ll just be sitting here for the next four hours, it won`t be interesting. My phone rings. I wasn`t sure if I was allowed to answer that in the emergency room. Thought I had seem somewhere, on a sign at some point, that cell phones were not allowed in the emergency room. I couldn`t remember. I answered it.

Linda`s man Carl was calling. The first thing he asked was when I`d be back at work. I told him they were going to keep me there for observation for four hours. Four hours, he repeats. Then he asks which hospital. City. City, he repeats. So I wouldn`t be coming back that day. No, I didn`t think so. Ok bye, he says, and hangs up. Fantastic. Now my boss is mad at me, I abandoned her for lunch. Left her there all alone and she won`t get over that, not easily. I decide I don`t care, because I almost died but I didn`t and I`m still here and I`m still breathing and I`m still, I`m still... I`m still.

The bed was on an incline. Almost 90 degrees. I woke up about three hours later, I know this because I searched, and found, the ticking clock above the left door. I`m curled at the bottom of the bed, freezing. I`ve got three blankets and they`re thin and they`re gone. My mom and David. They`ve left. Good, I felt bad keeping them. Something`s beeping, a door breezes open, nurses laugh in the other room. I sigh. I close my eyes. Damned piece of pineapple square.