I'm sick again. Well, kind of. Actually it's only an allergic reaction. I'm covered in hives because my stupid job in the stupid kitchen had shrimp and yet again my stupid boss decided to schedule me for today. Despite knowing two weeks in advance that we were going to have shrimp today! Seriously. They ALWAYS seem to schedule me when we're serving shrimp.
The fates really hate me. I'm allergic to shellfish, I work in the food industry which means I'm exposed to shrimp, my bosses REFUSE to schedule me around the days we have shellfish, I'm expected to help out with trays as needed even if they have shrimp on them, everyone forgets I'm allergic to shellfish, I don't feel I have the right to tell them I shouldn't handle shellfish, and then they're a person short if or when I get sick. Like what happened today!
Shrimp's the worst for me. It seems to be the worst for almost everyone with shellfish allergies. So I get my worst reactions to it. Crab and lobster are a bit milder; they don't really give me hives if I touch them or make me feel too sick to my stomach. But I still can't eat them. Which is horrible because I love crab and lobster. Used to eat them all the time before everyone finally realized I was allergic to shellfish.
When I first started working in the kitchen, my reactions were pretty bad. I'd get sick just by breathing in the fumes from shrimp! Light-headed, dizzy, and bad asthma. I also get very queasy breathing the stuff in. >_<
Eating shrimp is the absolute worst. Well duh. It's a food allergy. Being exposed to that much can't ever be good. My tongue swells and my throat closes shut. Good thing I hate the way shrimp tastes anyways! I wouldn't eat it even if I wasn't allergic to it.
Most of my reactions are just hives from skin contact these days. Annoying and itchy. Sometimes I only have to take some hydocortisone cream, and the itchiness stops. Everything's pretty much fine after that. But other times that cream doesn't help. When that happens the hives spread. Actually a few times the hives spread despite me using it. And that's when the nurse says I have to take Benadryl. There's just one problem. Benadryl causes sedation. Errr... it will knock you out.
I got sent home because of that. Now I'm just kinda waiting for the Benadryl to kick in and make me too sleepy to stay awake. There's nothing like a drug-induced sleep, I guess.