If you are lucky, doctors will have warned you it could happen someday, sent you home with a sack of emergency breathing sprays, epinephrine syringes, and instructional videos. They will scour your test results, tell you to avoid insect stings, not to eat shellfish or nuts. But their readings will fail, just like that of the carnival gypsy you saw as a child, a dark-haired woman who traced your lifeline and promised health.
We fear the grand disaster—a terrorist attack, a viral epidemic—but it’s the everyday things that actually get us. (Government officials report that if the first Gulf War had not happened, the number of American military personnel who died in stateside automobile accidents would have been greater than the actual number that died in the war.) In this, anaphylaxis proves unexceptional. It lurks in the everyday: the dye that floods your joint before an MRI, the cat your lover rescued six years before meeting you, the honey the innkeeper offers on your last morning in her country, urging, “One taste—so sweet it takes away the breath.”
The breath isn’t actually the first to fail. A tickle arises in the back of your throat, or your lips swell. Maybe you’ll itch, and break out in a rash. Your speech thickens. Sometimes your blood pressure plummets, reminding you how you felt the night you toasted cowboys with half a bottle of Maker’s Mark. You cannot answer basic questions, because your brain focuses on preserving a single detail—the scent of lavender, the feel of stubble, or the taste of shame.
Anaphylaxis arrives unbidden, like a subpoena, or heartbreak. You cannot prepare, may only react. Remind your lover to inject your leg, not—as in the movies—your chest. Measure your breath and wait for the needle’s plunge.
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