This is Nuts!
I remember the third time I saw the inside of an ambulance. It was clean, the room was white, and it had chairs on the sides for other people to sit. I was on a stretcher visualizing the small room. I was just 8 years old. The medical equipment was near the front. The ambulance had a homely touch to it. I probably would have felt the homeliness of it if I wasn’t about to die in 5 minutes. Then, the world went blank.
It all started when I was at the Hidden Hills carpool pickup. The wind seemed to bounce off the golden-brown walls and blow on me. The sun glinted off the shiny new window that was installed. As I tried to finish my homework, I felt good. I had gotten a 4 on my project on whales. My stomach grumbled. Ugh!, So hungry!, I thought to myself. Then, I felt the tap on my back. I turned and smiled at my friend Matthew.
“Hey!”, he greeted.
“Hey Matthew!”, I replied.
I sighed, it seemed to take forever until I can get out of school and go enjoy the warm comforts of my home. The cold wind was beating down on my back.
Then, my other friend, Srivatsan walked out of his classroom. “Srivatsan!”, I called out. He walked towards me.
“Hey Jeevan!”, Srivatsan called. My greeting back to him was cut off when I heard a rustling sound coming from Matthew’s direction.
I heard him say, “Hey Srivatsan, are you hungry?”. Then I saw him pull out a delicious-looking cookie. It taunted my eyes with the sugar-coating on the outside. Little did I know, that it would be the thing that almost caused my death.
“Hey Matthew, I’m hungry”, I blurt out. I think to myself, maybe the cookie has nuts. I shouldn't eat it. But my stomach overpowered my brain.
“Ok, here, take this cookie”, he offers to me. In my stomach’s excitedness, I forget to ask him if it has nuts.
I give in to his offer. I was just too hungry to listen to my brain and I knew it would take a long time until I got back home. I put the cookie in my mouth, only to feel the sweet, succulent taste of a cake, molded into a smaller cookie. After swallowing, I heard my name being called out.
“Jeevan R. and Srivatsan S., please come to the carpool lane!”. It was a teacher. “Srivatsan, lets go”, I say as I frantically try to stuff my math homework in my backpack.
“Ok, Ok” he grumbles.
As we walk into his mom’s car, I feel a funny sensation in my throat. It was the feeling I usually get when I eat nuts. I shake it off. But a tiny part of my head tells me it might have contained nuts. My mind is racing now. I was unsure. A cold sweat engulfed my face. It probably never happened, I think to myself. As I sit down, that same feeling re-occurs in my throat. I didn't like it. That part of my head that told me that it was nuts, came back. It did not feel right. As the car neared my house, I told Srivatsan,
“Hey Srivatsan, I really don't feel so-”, My words were cut off by my veggie sandwich lunch coming up my throat and into the car seat. The grey leather car seat turned a shade of green. Just by looking at the seat, I feel vomit coming up. But I hold in, and force it down
Eww, I think to myself. By now, my face was red with embarrassment. Srivatsan’s Mom didn't say anything to me, she just tried to speed and bring me home as soon as possible. I am so scared. The sound of my vomit keeps reverberating in my head
As soon as the car pulls up to the curb, I jump out of the car, forgetting my backpack in all the horror that I am going through. I frantically ring my doorbell, trying to get my dad to come and call 911. My dad opens the door with an annoyed look on his face about why I rang the doorbell so many times.
I pant and try to say, “Dad … help … nuts … call 911 ...hidden hills.” As his eyes widened with horror, he frantically tried to press the buttons on his phone to call 911. I can barely hear him talk to the 911 receiver. I fall down from my queasiness onto my carpet.
“My son is having an allergic reaction. We need help. He is almost about to suffocate”, I hear him say. I feel my senses and my ability to think straight and breathe.
“Ugh!” I grunt as I lay on my carpet. My throat is closing in. Then I near the doorbell ringing and opening. Then I hear the ambulance crew attach some instruments to my finger. Lastly I hear, “His condition is fatal; let’s get him in the ambulance”. Then I faint.
I wake up in the ambulance, on a stretcher. Suddenly a blazing pain shoots up my thigh and all the way to my foot. “Ah!”, I scream, my eyes are now refocusing to the light in the ambulance. Through my blurred vision, I see my panic-stricken Dad and all of the ambulance crew members, looking at me with questionable looks on their faces. The seething pain in my thigh is still there. I look down. It is an epipen shot, one of the many things that remove allergic reactions. I feel a tear running down my cheek.
The first words I hear are, “You are ok, son”. It was one of the older ambulance operators. I looked outside and we were in coming back to my house.
I heaved. I was safe. After I woke up, I don't remember much. I just remember coming back home and easing in on my sofa. I see the familiar surroundings of the painting on the wall, the picture of my family, and the groove my epipen is making into my couch.
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