A Friendly Probiotic
“No Soy, no
gluten, no fish…” the label read. She breathed an inward sigh of relief in
reading those magic words on the pill bottle. No fish. It was a little thing
that most people wouldn’t understand, but in her haste to shake the
side-effects of the nasty antibiotics, she had neglected to check the pill
bottle for allergens before purchasing.
Opening the
bottle, she took one more than the recommended dose and relaxed a bit. Those
damned antibiotics were going in the garbage. Nobody needs to be made sicker to
repair a minor problem. The body aches and the heartburn were tolerable, but at
the point her tongue started cracking, well, that was enough for this foray
into the world of standard medical treatments.
She was
thankful for those words on the bottle of probiotics, “no fish,” such a small
thing to anyone else. Originally, the thing that had captured her attention was
the description, “a friendly probiotic…” it proclaimed. As if a probiotic could
come running up to her and rub against her leg like a kitten wanting attention.
At first,
nobody had believed she could possibly be allergic to fish. Peanuts, maybe, but
fish? Fish is good for you, full of Omega oils and healthy fat. How could fish
make a person sick?
She
remembered the heavenly smell as her dad smoked salmon, back in the old days
when everything was right with the world, before the divorce. The fishing
trips, where somehow she always caught the biggest fish even though she was a
little wisp of six years old and had no idea of strategy in sport fishing.
She
remembered the taste as well, which was savory and satisfying. Soon, though,
she learned that the flavor came at too great a cost for her.
Lying on the
floor, with what felt like the worst flu ever, combined with heartburn, her
face red and feverish, her motions weak and sluggish. “What’s wrong?” mom would
ask, “Did you swallow a bone? I told you to be careful.”
Nobody
realized what they were seeing. It passed as always, and life went on, a little
brush with death left ignored and unrecognized.
There was a
salmon bake coming up at the school. “Are you sure you want the fish?” her mom
asked, “You don’t like fish.” And surely, by that time, she had learned that
she didn’t like fish. She liked fishing, gutting and cleaning her catch; she
loved the smell of it cooking and the look of the beautiful pink meat on her
plate. It was the agony that came afterwards that made her suspect the healthy
meal as having something in for her.
It felt as
if something was sitting on her chest, she wheezed for breath yet tried to stay
as still as possible to make the pain go away. Yet her family remained unaware
that her problem was more severe than a minor stomach upset. “She has a
sensitive stomach,” they would say. At times, there would be visual and
auditory distortions to go along with the general feeling of “I’m dying.” The
colors flashed and ringed her vision and words came to her slowly, out of the
ether, like a contact attempt from the afterlife.
Yet, she
still fished with her dad on the weekends, asking to keep the catch to barbeque
over the campfire. Her time with her father was limited and fishing was a
shared bond. He didn’t understand her as she came into her teen years, and to
her, he looked like a foolish old man who didn’t know a thing. So they fished,
luckily never catching anything on most of their forays.
She wondered
in retrospect if she had let those many fish get away for her own good.
The last
occasion, they camped near the river, near her older sister’s house. They had
hiked up and down the river for hours before they settled on the little pool to
drop their lines in. And the bites came. The fish were small, but assuredly
legal, according to dad. Of course, dad had no use for rules and she held no
fishing license.
They cleaned
their small meal on the rocks and grilled them over the campfire. It was good.
Minutes
after eating, she was seized by the horrible pain, the burning pressure in her
chest. She lay in the camper, in the upper bunk, the horrendously dated green
and gold upholstery mocking her foolishness. “You can’t eat that, dummy, you’ll
die!” it seemed to scream at her. Her senses were overloaded and all she could
do was lay still and wait it out.
“Are you
okay?” her dad hollered in the door. He was outside with the campfire and his
flask, like any other camping trip. “I think I swallowed a bone,” she choked,
trying not to panic the old man. He accepted her assurance that she would be
alright and returned to the fire.
It may have
been hours, but probably minutes in the grand scheme of things. Nothing
stretches time better than feeling like you’re dying. Finally, her body forgave
her sinful indulgence and allowed her to sleep.
She never knowingly
ate fish again. Her family never accepted that she was allergic and she was
never officially diagnosed. If she was offered the finned death, she would
smile and say she was allergic, though nobody believed it. People aren’t
allergic to fish. People are allergic to cats and peanuts, not fish.
It further
confounded people that she could eat other seafood. Shellfish allergies were
real, after all.
She
remembered her brush with death in the form of a Caesar salad. She had become
careful and suspicious of food over the years and asked many questions before
accepting food from others. “What kind of dressing is on the salad?” she asked
at the potluck with schoolmates. “Caesar. It’s a Caesar salad.” Her friend
replied. With her fear of food, she mistakenly judged the salad to be a safe
bet and consumed a decent portion. She missed three days of school.
Later,
casually picking up a bottle of Caesar salad dressing at the grocery, she saw
the awful truth: “anchovy paste.”
Her paranoia
still hadn’t reached its peak. After high school, she had taken a job at a fish
restaurant, presumably until something better came along. There, she was faced
with the evil prospect of employee meals. Training was such that the oil that
cooked chicken and fries could never cross with oil that cooked seafood. It was
to protect those with shellfish allergies. There were allergy warnings next to
the menu. None of them covered her affliction.
The
employees weren’t allowed to cook their own meals to avoid people taking larger
than acceptable portions. She ate a lot of salads in those days because they
touched nothing.
Then the
rashes began. She cut and breaded the evil fish daily for the masses of
customers who rushed through the door for all-you-can-eat. At the end of the
night, her arms were covered in angry welts. Long sleeves and longer gloves
helped her deal with her problem for years, but even her face began to show the
effects, blemished from the splash-back of the evil fryers.
And yet, her
problem went undiagnosed. People thought she was crazy. She lost a lot of
weight at that job from never eating anything unless she had personally changed
the grease that day.
Her allergy
wasn’t forgotten, but it became routine. She never ate fish and it never
crossed her mind that others did. And never did she meet another with the same
affliction.
Of course,
as to be expected, she married a fisherman. He suffered endless frustration that
while she took part in his hobby, she’d never consume the bounty of their
trips. At family gatherings he’d say, “She doesn’t eat fish…” as if it was a
common choice, flummoxing the hosts. And when she’d refuse anything off the
barbeque because someone had also cooked fish there, he’d just shrug. Her
husband wasn’t a very good advocate; in fact, she suspected he didn’t believe
in her allergy either.
Clam
chowder, crab cakes, scallops, they were all off the menu. She had learned from
the seafood restaurant that the cheap and imitation versions of these foods
were really made with scab fish. Cheap cod that wasn’t good enough to be sold
as fish. Scallops were mostly made with the scraps of halibut left over after
cutting to send to stores.
It just wasn’t
worth the risk. As such, she hadn’t had a reaction in a long time. Then she
found that a lot of pills contained fish products, that most fertilizers
contained fish products, some body washes and deodorants were also suspect.
Finally, she
met one other person with her condition. They related well on many levels and
became fast friends. Yet it flummoxed her when her friend told her of the great
Caesar salad at a local restaurant.
“You can’t
eat that, you’ll die,” she said, shocked.
“I just eat
it until my lips go numb,” her friend responded, a wicked look in her eye. “I
stop when my lips go numb so I don’t die.”
(c) Kelly Upton Barnes and aliases 2013
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