I’m allergic to cats, dogs, kangaroos, peaches, and cherries. I’ve been taking allergy meds so my wife could get a service dog without killing me. Been taking the meds for about six months.
Last week we picked up the dog He’s adorable, pretty smart, somewhat normal-dog trained, and definitely not service-ready. His professional training will begin later this month. I believe he can succeed assuming my wife doesn’t die from exhaustion before he can learn to keep her alive.
Last week I also made fruit salad for a picnic, and included peaches and cherries (peaches, cherries, nectarines, oranges, honeycrisp apples, red grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, banana, and I used all-natural concentrated grape juice for sweetener, my wife didn’t let me add grapefruit, and I forgot to add the damn pineapple).
Over the weekend I ate fruit salad, and I’ve been slobbered on by the dog all week, with no signs of any allergic reaction.
The last time I ate cherries, I had to get meds to stop my throat from closing up, and cherries are my favorite fruit.
Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about conquering my immune system, and we had a whole bag of cherries left, so just now I decided to eat some cherries as a snack.
Well, it looks like I’ve been pissing in my immune system’s eye, and it just blinked.
My daughter had left to get veggies for the guinea pigs (no, not allergic to them, but the orchard grass is a little troublesome, and Timothy Hay is completely intolerable). My wife and her dog are sleeping.
I stopped eating the cherries as soon as I started feeling a bit off. No symptoms other than the slightest itch in the left side of my bottom lip.
I’m not concerned about dying. I’m not allowed to kill myself because I made a stupid promise to my wife years ago. However, this would be an accident, and I’ve pointed out to her that just because I’m not allowed to off myself on purpose, I don’t have to submit to any life-saving efforts. She tried to argue with me about that, but I played the bodily autonomy card and she had to concede the point.
Anyway, my unlikely death isn’t really what I’m concerned with right now.
It just occurred to me that if I think the end is coming, there’s an opportunity to have some really cool final words, but I can’t think of anything.
“I was thinking of the immoral words of Socrates, who said, ‘…I drank what?’”
- Val Kilmer as Chris Knight in ‘Real Genius’
My question for you lemmings is, what are some cool final words for me to say?
Also, for anyone concerned, as I finish this post, I’m feeling now like my immune system has decided that flushing out my digestion is the best course of action. So death doesn’t seem to be in the cards today, although I might end up wishing it was.
My only regret…. Is that I had…
Boneitis
Tell my wife, “Hello”
You should really see a medical professional if you are able.
For last words though, I would go with “I never told anyone, but the…” [cough cough then dies] but it would be really hard to get the timing right.
That’s good. I didn’t consider the whole, “Listen carefully. I have a fortune hidden away. I want you to know, look in the…[cough] arrrgggh…”
Regarding help… It just isn’t for me. White-knuckling my way through existence has been all I’ve known for my whole life.
All my kids and my friends and everyone else, I tell them to get into therapy and they listen and I’m glad. I just can’t do it myself. I’m the transition between my parents who refused to believe in it and my kids who embrace it. I believe in it…for everyone else ;-)
A couple favourites:
“I should have never switched from scotch to martinis.” Marlon Brando
“I can’t take it anymore!” -Rodney Dangerfield
If I could choose what mine would be:
“Knock, knock…”
“Who’s there?”
dead
I don’t know why, but I find this incredibly humourous.
Related, I don’t want to be buried in a graveyard but if I did I would want “I thought it would be funny” on my gravestone.
Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it’s there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It’s a wave.
And then it crashes in the shore and it’s gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know it’s one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it’s supposed to be.
-Professor Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place)
OP, get allergy shots. Seriously. It’s a pain in the ass 2-5 year commitment but after a year I’ve gone from taking two or more antihistamines a day (like, a Zyrtec in the morning and at night, a booster during the day in pollen season, a Benadryl or two if it got really bad) to stop from skinning myself alive with a cheese grater, to one a day like a normal person.
“And that’s the end of my show! Donk”
—Homestar Runner
Bro just stop eating cherries if you are allergic to them!! I know they taste fantastic but sometimes life kind of sucks.
The dog is adorable, though. I hope it works out!
I had for a long time, but I had to try again when it was looking like my immune system was going to cooperate.
Take the oppurtunity to claim that your mortal enemy has poisoned you.
The first person that pops to mind is already dead (brain cancer, and couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person).
Without him walking the earth, I’m not sure who I’d pick.
You could pick the concept of capitalism and blame it for poisoning you
The only people who would agree are already convinced, and the people who need to be convinced would discount it as the mindless ravings of a dying man.
When I think of last words, I think of Roald Dahl.
I remember something about “thanks for all the fish”, but if you’re allergic to those too, maybe pick a different goodbye.
I’m good with fish and shellfish, thank goodness. I had a scare a few years ago when I had a reaction after some king crab, but there must have been something else that triggered it.
funny I just mentioned this in another thread.
I wrote a letter to my wife telling her all the things I would say if I were dying or dead. this way, should I be dying, we can just be emotionally intimate together for our final moments together.
sometimes words aren’t enough to express how we feel. Actions, no matter how small or quiet, speak loud volumes that can fill a lifetime of peace or regret. In my final moments I want to give my wife and our family the peace they deserve. After all, the living suffer needlessly after death.
I’ve often thought I should have a stack of letters for my kids for after I’m gone.
I haven’t done it yet.
I’m honestly expecting my wife or kids to just throw everything off mine out when I’m gone, so the letters would probably end up in a landfill.
Well, shit…
Or
Goodbye
Keeping it grounded. The last time it happened to me I didn’t even get that chance.
moist
That’s a good one.
I’m often not ok, but lately I have been. Nevertheless, due to the promise, I’ve never come close to the easy exit.
I am not concerned with what comes after this life, as I’m confident it is the same nothing that came before. Oblivion does not bother me.
I can say with confidence, knowing how bad things have gotten in the past, if it ever gets bad enough for me to break my word, the world can rest assured that my life reached a point of hopeless and irredeemable despair and I am truly better off.
