I'm allergic to penicillin

An allergy of the worst variety.

The sort that leads to anaphylaxic shock.

So what's that like?

I was watching Boston Legal with the GF (amazing show btw) and felt kind of drowsy so I went to bed. At that point I had ingested the pills for about 10 minutes.

5 minutes later, I felt a terrible itch in my hands, followed by my scalp and then face. It felt like a swarm of red ants had just given themselves a full-on fucking go-ahead at my flesh. Everything then heated up to sun-surface temperatures, and according the the GF I looked terribly flushed.

Now here's the thing, I watch a lot of House M.D and for whatever reason knew that this was an allergic reaction. I remember saying, "Babe, this isn't good. I'm having an allergic reaction to the meds, I think you should call an ambulance."

After which I could feel my face and hands start to swell (I'm not sure if this was just a mental thing or panic induced), and fell to the floor from lack of energy/breath. Typical of Malaysian Emergency Services, no one was picking up, so the GF calls a cab instead. At this point I was just trying my hardest to breathe, a fucking monumental task when you feel like your throat has swollen in on itself.

Not stopping there, I suddenly felt like throwing up. A stagger to the toilet and much projectile vomiting later, I still didn't feel better. But on the bright side, if my throat was able to let out that much gunk, I at least knew I could breathe slightly. I crawled back to the living room and collapsed on the floor, and that's when the diarrhoea hit.

Another stagger to the toilet and an attempt to balance myself on the stool without falling over. I hadn't realised at the time because I had trouble staying conscious, hence my eyes being closed more often than not, but my vision was terribly blurred. I couldn't see anything in front of me. Just a mish-mash of objects melding into one another.

After I was done ejecting bodily fluids, I staggered back into the living room, and basically fall onto the floor again. Spent the next few minutes just trying to breathe before the cab arrived and my life-saving girlfriend verbally coaxes me into walking to the lift and into the cab.

Got back to the clinic that issued the antibiotics (a few minutes away) and had a steroid injection, where he also explained anaphylaxis to me. To which I replied, "Oh, you mean like in House?"

Anyways, I'm not sure how close I was to kicking the bucket. I've heard differing opinions. I know at several points I was thinking to myself, "Man, this really sucks. Dying blows. It's so fucking overrated." And whenever I lost consciousness there would be a feeling of imminent blackout and telling myself ,"I wonder if this is going to be it". I drifted in and out of that state for a bit.

So that's that. I went back home and passed out. Felt perfectly fine the next day. Told some close friends what happened and had a few good comical responses. Thanks to the peeps that called and texted. Nope, didn't want to be admitted, I fucking hate local hospitals and I can't afford the fancy private ones.


From Ashley, "From prescription meds? I always thought you'd go from sex, drugs and rock and roll!"

From Raj (upon being told I almost kicked it) , "Huh? AGAIN AH?"

Testament to my luck in recent times -_-