My tongue is a time bomb that will blow up and kill me someday.

I am not speaking metaphorically.

Among the many wonderful things I inherited from my Mother is the weird propensity for my tongue - with no provocation or warning - to swell up. 

The first time unwarranted swelling happened to my Mom was when I was in high school.  During the night, for no reason whatsoever, her lips decided to do a bagel impersonation.  By morning she looked like a badly drawn caricature of Mick Jagger.  It took two days for the swelling to subside.  Over the last thirty years, Mom has formed a close association with her allergist who has told her pretty much "Beats me.  Stay away from aspirin?"  It was never a big deal until it moved from her lips to her tongue and put her in the hospital, intubated, for three days. 

That was pretty scary.

The only upside to that event is that when it first happened to me, about four years ago, I knew what to do.  I popped some benedryl and headed for the emergency room. 

Since then, I have learned to carry benedryl with me all the time, and I keep two epi-pens handy.  We may never find out what causes it, it may be purely spontaneous.  I seem to be allergic to nothing.  I have also learned that panic is good; the shot of adrenalin to the system is at least as affective as the antihistamine is to stop the swelling.

So yesterday, when I felt that familiar stiffening in my tongue, I popped some Loratidine and headed for the hospital.  The medicine wasn't working so I detoured to the drug store and asked the pharmacist if I could take benedryl at the same time.
 
"They're both antihistamines, why would you want to do that?" she asked.

"My tug iz zwellig op."

"Oh go right ahead!"

So I ate the benedryl on my way to the hospital.  Then I tried to panic.

"Oh no! Oh no! My tongue!"

Sigh.

Turns out I can't fake panic.  If it doesn't come natural, it doesn't come at all.  All I could really think was ;

"Good GOD benedryl is vile when you chew it!!" 

My allergist told me to chew the medicine if it happened again, as it gets into the bloodstream quicker that way but OH, PETESTARK, IT WAS BAD!!

By the time I got from the drugstore to the ER,(all of four blocks,) my entire mouth had gone numb, with a burning sensation around the edges.  But the swelling had stopped in it's tracks.

I decided not to check into the emergency room unless absolutely necessary.  I used the ladies room mirror to check the progress of my tongue.  I had grabbed my needlepoint on my way out the door, so I just sat back in the corner, stitching, pretending I was waiting for someone and running to the bathroom every ten minutes or so.  After an hour it was obvious that not only had the swelling stopped, it had started to recede.

I knew that I had about twenty minutes before the benedryl would knock me out and I'd much rather pass out at home than on a couch in the ER, so I left.

It was the last warm, sunny beautiful day of the fall and I spent it in a benedryl induced coma.

All because my tongue tried to outgrow my mouth.