Learning lessons; anaphylaxis, pine nuts and dialling 144

Bad pine-nuts! Bad! Bad!

We went out to dinner last night, to a restaurant I don't think I'll name. We went out with some friends of our who are a commuter couple, so we don't get to see them together that often.  Last night was one of the first times in six months that we've actually managed to all be in the same place on a Saturday night, and it all ended in the great excitement of flashing lights and near life-saving panic.

The restaurant looked pretty good, plenty of people there giving it a bit of atmosphere. The waitress, whose English was excellent, was very helpful. The menu looked interesting, a bit mediterranean, so I advised the waitress on my allergy to pine nuts; fun, because neither of us knew the word for pine nuts in the other's mother tongue. It being a French restaurant, we ordered steak-seignon - rare for the main.

Out came the starters, and Sarah and I laughed. Neatly tossed on my salad was a handful of pine nuts. "Waitress! Waitress!" She was properly apologetic, removed the offending plate and returned a few minutes later with a plate sans pine nuts. The red mullet was actually really good, with the bear's garlic, and if I'd left it at that it probably would have been a good evening.

Abandoning caution I decided to eat the salad, of course the chap in the kitchen had either not washed his hands or the bowl or the tongs. It was immediately obvious that the salad had been cross contaminated, and I have to say I was pretty annoyed at the waitress. I've ordered from restaurants before with pine-nuts on the menu and they usually finish my sentences by telling me about their clean station policies to avoid cross contamination, clearly Geneva isn't caught up on all that.
So! Off we went to the hospital. They gave me a shot of anti-histamine combined with steroids, and told me I could wait around for four hours. Well, what with the baby sitter being home and all that we decided to hang about for a couple hour or so and then go home. But before I went the doctor gave me a stern warning about how I needed to stay because anaphylaxis can go in phases, and the second phase is worse than the first. Still, I knew how my reactions usually go, so I decided to take my chances, and go home to relieve the baby sitter.
About five hours later I wake up, throats tight, breathing's laboured. I'm terrified. Wake up Sarah, scare the life out of her, whilst she crashes around trying to work out how to call the emergency services - now why didn't we figure that number out when we first got here - it's 144 by the way -thankfully that's just what I needed, and with all the panic going on my adrenalin gets going, and whoooof, Sam's dinner comes up, along with the contamination that caused the attack, with in 30 seconds my histamine reaction has gone and I can breath normally.
All of which begs the question, if I'd stayed in the hospital, what are the chances I'd have had an adrenalin hit to make me hof? I'd have been in the hospital until Sunday afternoon suffering wave after wave of anaphylaxis between injections of anti-histamine and steroids, until everything had passed through me. Not really where I wanted to be.
Soon after the ambulance turned up. The guys spoke no English and feeling very tired and uncomfortable still, I decided to go with them, just in case. When I arrived in A&E I think the staff there decided to ignore me. They have a poster on the wall, which describes how they prioritise patients. Death's door - 10 minutes, seriously injured - 1 hour, seriously injured but stable 2 hours, anything else, bugger off - so a couple of hours later, after I've had a nap in the waiting area, I decided to catch the bus home, in time to find Sarah, who's cleaned up after me, playing with the little one who got up around 6. Sunday, she and her big sister mostly looked after themselves whilst their poor parents crawled around picking up their toys.

Photo cc pgoyette.