I feel as if I’ve become that person; the one who orders the ridiculously specialised coffee at the cafe. The half-shot, triple decaf, no froth, snow leopard milk, extra tepid in a mug made in Machu Picchu during the Inca period and rinsed out with unicorn tears. And it is a trendy cafe we are in: Doug and I completely out of place in this hip back alley cafe trying to get a plain old burger for Doug and something without meat – I can’t believe I am asking for something with NO meat! - for me. When I ask the very helpful and friendly (trendy and handsome too!) barista if they can whiten a coffee with something other than dairy milk, he looks upon us kindly, aliens that have arrived in the new trendy Devonport, our grey hair and wrinkled visages giving us away as old people or worse boomers.
In the 1980’s I lived in Devonport, in an old house only two blocks from the ocean. I kept swimming right up until mid April, although the water was pretty cold by that time. Devonport seemed a lot smaller and a lot less fancy in those days. There were no trendy cafes, or Kathmandu retail stores, just milk bars serving burgers and pubs that were a little rough around the edges. Even then, however, there was a back to the earth, trendy contingent in the area. I was training as a midwife at the Mersey Maternity Hospital and occasionally a couple would ask us to wrap up the placenta for them to take home. Some had rissoles recipes (true story), while others had secret mystic rituals planned. I volunteered once a week at the Wilderness Society Office and my beat up old car sported dozens of ‘greenie’ stickers. For some reason, the Wilderness Society Office always smelt of joss sticks and so did I when it came time to leave.
Two days before I had used my epi-pen and called an ambulance to the mountain bike parking lot. Some mild dizziness which had troubled me in the night, had gradually worsened after eating a piece of bacon for breakfast. In my usual, “I’ll just ignore it” fashion, I had started riding my mountain bike up the trails. But the dizziness progressed until even I admitted there was something wrong. I took the much shorter, downhill road route back to the van and realised that without intervention I was rapidly heading for unconsciousness, just like when I get a tick bite. By the time the ambulance arrived, the epinephrine had taken effect and my symptoms had receded.
As long as I’ve had my anaphylactic allergies (which is over 25 years), I’ve considered myself lucky because I don’t have food allergies. True anaphylactic food allergies are difficult to manage. Every label has to be examined closely and eating anything you have not prepared yourself carries some unknown, but possibly life threatening risk. You can be prepared but you can never prevent every eventuality. I carry a very comprehensive anaphylaxis kit which is prominently labelled EPI PEN and includes instructions on what to do should I be found unconsciousness.
We always think we would know what we would do in any circumstance. I’ve had friends die from cancer, more and more as I get older and cancer becomes more prevalent. Almost all of them fought the good fight, the valiant battle to the end. The last year(s) of their lives were consumed with medical and surgical treatments that, in the end, simply delayed the inevitable. Very few, two that I can name, refused treatment, and one chose MAD (medically assisted dying). I think about this a lot now. What would I do? I want to believe I would go gracefully and fearlessly into “that good night,” but when I feel the darkness closing in and I desperately reach for my epi-pen, I know, in my heart, that I am nowhere near ready to leave this world, which is crazy and imperfect, but nonetheless breathtakingly beautiful.
