My Husband Went Hunting and Now There’s a New Gal in Our Relationship
The Beginning of Our Alpha-Gal Journey
One of my husband’s favorite activities is hunting — and yes, we actually eat the meat. I quit purchasing meat at the grocery store a long time ago but that’s an entirely different article! Anyhow, he looks forward to the season when he gets to spend lots of time in the woods disguised as underbrush trying to outsmart the natural animal instincts of other creatures. Its never really appealed much to me but he loves it. I guess it’s the thrill of the hunt that he really enjoys, and the abundance of fresh clean air doesn’t hurt at all.
In case you haven’t guessed, my husband is the hard-working rugged type. He’s a self-described carnivore who loves to build things. Salads typically aren’t on his menu and the four most basic canned veggies are the quintessential cornerstone of his meat and potatoes diet. At least they were, until something changed back in August of 2018……and we never saw it coming.
My daughter and I were enjoying a typical late summer afternoon, taking note of the few dead leaves that had started to fall. We were goofing off, just spending some quality time together waiting for her father to get home from work. Dinner was on the stove getting cold when we finally heard the door open and looked to the hallway in search of his large silhouette.
He was a tall bearded man, about 260 pounds of pure testosterone. At the time we had a small house with eight-foot ceilings which made him appear massive in the afternoon shadows. While he always bent in the knees a little stepping up into the kitchen, something was different this time. He was moving slowly, and his distinctive lofty stature was compromised. It seemed difficult for him to drag himself up into the kitchen where he leaned against the counter like he’d just finished a marathon.
I sensed there was a problem, but I couldn’t imagine what it might be. As I got up to greet him my mother’s eyes quickly scanned for the sight of blood and I was quietly reassured by the lack of its presence. I wondered if he’d been in an accident on the way home? Perhaps he’d hit his head; maybe he was dazed. I quickly dismissed the notion since he’d driven himself home and he wasn’t that late.
His odd behavior coupled with the apparent absence of major injury befuddled me and my momma senses went into overdrive. He said he didn’t feel good and I could tell by his strange demeanor that he wasn’t exaggerating. Then my eyes suddenly fixed on his lower legs. There were large oddly shapen welts covering his meaty calves. They seemed to appear in an instant. Faint at first, then darker and more pronounced as they wrapped around his legs and climbed up under his shorts. I was offended and bewildered all at the same time.
I pulled his shirt from his pants to find more on his back. They seemed to be mutating before my eyes, almost reaching for each other as they threatened to completely cover what was left of his tan skin. I know he could see the concern in my eyes as I gave him the Benedryl but I made it a point to stay calm. His face and his ears were unusually dark red, and I suspected his blood pressure was probably through the roof. As we anxiously waited for signs the antihistamine was working, my husband said the words that struck fear deep down in the pit of my soul. “I can’t breathe.”
At first, I was dumbfounded. I wasn’t sure what to do but I wanted someone else to take over. I stared at him for a moment, watching his slow labored breathing as my brain interpreted the words he said. I knew something was very wrong and I didn’t know how to make it better. I froze in fear at the sound of those words. Then it occurred to me that he must be terrified, and he could hardly breathe.
Luckily, we lived just over five miles from the nearest hospital. In a fraction of a second, I decided that I would drive him there myself. No calling 9–1–1 and waiting for someone to put down their cup of coffee before trying to find our house. It wasn’t clearly marked anyway. What if he passed out before they got there? I couldn’t take that chance. Besides, I’d never be able to keep him calm long enough to wait on an ambulance as his last little bit of air slipped away. So, he mustered his last little bit of strength, which was probably pure adrenaline, and we made it out to the car together.
It took us approximately 8 minutes to get to the hospital, running almost all six stoplights and crossing the Georgia state line. The ER attendant attempted to have us sit down and fill out paperwork even though my husband was quite obviously dizzy from lack of oxygen and not well on his feet . Fortunately, she got her ass in gear when I explained that he couldn’t breathe and may be having some type of reaction. They calmly escorted us into the triage area to examine him and before we knew it there were people buzzing everywhere.
My husband was sprawled across the exam table with nurses and doctors going to and fro, speaking quietly amongst themselves. There were sensors hooked up to his fingertips and the bright white light shined straight down into his eyes as they put the oxygen mask over his face. He was pale and sweaty when they started giving him shots, measuring his pulse for signs of positive change. They pulled the thick hospital curtain shut to shield us from the outside world. Our little girl was ten at the time, standing there watching quietly. She knew there was no way I was going anywhere. Deep down I think she wanted to be there, to let her father know she was there for him.
Well, he knew she was there, and he wanted to be there for her too. Thanks to the work of the quick-thinking ER staff that day her father is alive and well today, but it was close. Too close. We almost lost him. After a battery of tests that seemed to drag on for hours the doctor on duty came to talk with us. He seemed perplexed as he explained that my husband had suffered a violent allergic reaction which sent his body into anaphylactic shock.
We talked about the food he’d eaten that day which wasn’t much and nothing out of the ordinary. We talked about colognes and shampoos and laundry detergent, none of which had been changed from the usual brands. We talked about anything that may have been ingested or absorbed into the skin throughout the day which may have possibly caused such a violent reaction. There was nothing — nothing that we could pinpoint and nothing more we could possibly do.
Then I remembered I had pulled a tick off my husband about two weeks prior to ‘the hospital incident.’ There was something strange about it. So strange in fact that I had taken a picture of it. I’m not sure why really, call it intuition. It was quite unusual. When I asked the doctor about it, he chuckled and patted me on the head as if to say, “you foolish child.” He told me that the day’s events had absolutely nothing to do with some tick and we were looking for an allergic reaction probably caused by a food item. I was really quite offended at the way I was dismissed but I was also grateful we were all going home together and somewhat healthy.
We were given a prescription for an EpiPen and sent on our way with instructions to follow up with an allergist. The EpiPen itself was of little comfort. Neither of us had ever used one and we still didn’t have any idea what had caused his anaphylaxis. We were hopeful it would buy us a few extra minutes if it happened again. We did make an appointment with an allergist the next day. Of course, it took a couple of weeks to get in, but it was progress. Little did we know, it was only the beginning of our Alpha-Gal journey! [more to follow….]
