Necklaces That Kill
Five years ago, I lived in Havana for the summer. There, I picked up two cute necklaces made of red seeds. I gave one of them to my friend Ana J. She let me borrow it when we were both down in Louisville this weekend. You can see that I wore it at Elizabeth’s wedding:
Cute right?
I’ve not worn mine in recent years because it keeps breaking, and sometimes it didn’t look good with certain clothing because of the way it was strung. Ana had the terrific idea of simply restringing it. She’s a smart girl that Ana. So today, I decided that, I too, would restring the beads on dental floss, thus rendering a very lovely accessory useful once again.
Flashback to the weekend: At the ceremony, I was struck with an allergy attack. First I sneezed, then my nose was drippy, and then my eyes started to itch profusely. I attributed this to the vagaries of Southern weather. I took out my contacts and popped an Emily-provided Claritin.
As I started to restring the beads this afternoon, I didn’t much think of the sneezing fit and the nose dripping that began around this time. It wasn’t until my right eye began itching like bejesus, that I decided I was in trouble. Weirdly, and as you may have inferred from the title, my little, red, five-year old necklace seems to be to blame.
And by blame, I mean causing a severe reaction in my eye that has left some nature of membrane/blister on my actual left eyeball, even after a panic-stricken trip to Walgreen’s to procure some Benadryl. Even after said Benadryl knocked me out and caused a series of delirious conversations on my cell phone, which was ringing off the hook tonight. (I love you all, but, in the future, please anticipate freak occurrences that only happen to my body.) Even after finally hauling myself out of bed, hoping to be better.
And I am a bit better. The itching of everywhere I touched on my body has gone, as has the inflammation of my right eye. The left eye, however, remains horrific, as this alarming picture of my eyeball will attest:
I should mention that’s not how my eye looks now - it’s less red, and more membraney. When I look to the right, there’s a kind of wrinkle on my eyeball. How long do I wait to go to the hospital, people? I’ve never been allergic to anything before.
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