Alien Eyes!

Before I got sick my friend Nelson (hi, Nelson!) came over to hang out because he wanted to meet my bird Jinji, about whom I have not yet blogged. Jinji was very special to me for many reasons. Maybe I'll post about him tomorrow. Also Pumpkin. Anyway, Nelson wanted to see Jinji.

So what do two guys do when they're hanging out? Basically just shmooze. I put out some nosh and Nelson brought some healthy stuff with him. I think it was vanilla chai tea or some such Starbuckian concoction. Ain't my style, but hey, Nelson's an artist. Whatever that means. So we're sitting there eating my junk (popcorn, I think) and drinking his tea when my eyes start to feel funny. Itchy, but not just itchy. itchy and heavy and watery and weird. Then I thought I felt my throat constricting a bit. Nelson sat across the table from me and watched this instant transformation almost literally with his mouth agape; he had never, ever witnessed anything like it. I went to look in the medicine cabinet mirror and said "holy @*%#!!!" I had never seen anything like it either. My eyes were almost swollen shut by then, mere slits. My eyelids were puffed up so much that they were golf-ball like. I didn't know whether to laugh or panic. I finally sheepishly asked Nelson if he thought I should call Hatzoloh. I think he was waiting for me to bring it up because he was obviously in favor of the idea.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

They came in just a few minutes, as usual (think I should dedicate a post to them? For the uninitiated? And please...someone let me know the definitive spelling of Hatzolah! Feedback! I want feedback!). Apparently they had never seen anything like it either. They took me to Methodist Hospital. I don't think they had seen anything quite like this either. I took the lovely self-portrait to the right with my cell phone camera while lying on the gurney in the ER. By then they had shot me full of Benedryl so my symptoms had subsided...believe it or not, they had actually been worse!

Nobody ever quite figured out what it was that had actually happened. The only thing that made any sense at all was that it was a reaction to the tea, because that's the only thing that I had never had before, but isn't that pretty benign stuff? Suffice it to say this strange episode did not augur well for what was to come, rather quickly, on its medically bizarre heels.

Now you'll have to excuse me...I'm expected back on the mother ship.