My Most Recent Allergic Reaction: Backpacking!

Today I'm going to be talking about my most recent allergic reaction that I had. When I had this allergic reaction, I was with my dad on a 3 day backpacking trip. We had just set up camp in the woods, basically in the middle of nowhere. For dinner, my dad used our little fuel stove to cook us up some cous cous with fish mixed in.

We had eaten the type of cous cous before, but we hadn't ever bought the type of cous cous with the seasoning packet that came with it. There wasn't anything that I was allergic to on the ingredient label, so we assumed the rice was safe. We had already eaten the fish before on a previous backpacking trip, so we knew for a fact that the fish was safe.

My dad poured the seasoning packet into the cous cous and fish mix and we started eating. When I started eating, the food was steaming hot, so I waited for it to cool down a little, but it was still hot when I finally started eating. Once I got about a quarter through my meal, my tongue felt puffy and itchy, but I just thought the super hot food was making it feel like that, so I waited for my food to cool down to lukewarm. After I ate a couple more bites, I knew something was wrong. My tongue was getting puffier and puffier and the puffiness wasn't going away. I told my dad, who took away my dinner and told me to get out my Epi-pen two pack, which had two Epi-pens and four Benadryl medicine packets in it. I was about to take some Benadryl when I realized my tongue felt better. My dad had me wait on taking the Benadryl, and after about five minutes, the puffiness was completely gone. I felt perfectly fine again, but instead of finishing the cous cous and fish, my dad made me a peanut butter and apple bagel sandwich. We both knew that I could eat the apple, peanut butter, and bagel, so I ate that instead to fill me up.

It was very scary to be out in the woods, nowhere near the road, having an allergic reaction. Having an allergic reaction at home or somewhere near the emergency room is scary, but you know that you can get to the hospital within a couple of minutes. Out in the woods, it was definitely very, very scary because if we called for an ambulance, they wouldn't be able to get to us. There was no way an ambulance truck could could come and get me, and it probably would've even been hard with a helicopter because we were surrounded by trees. I'm very glad that my dad was there with me and that I wasn't alone while I had this reaction.

Now, my dad and I will never go backpacking with foods that we haven't had before, and we'll be extra cautious next time we go for a backpacking adventure.

Thanks for reading! Talk to you in my next post!