My next trip is to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference. Travelling this far away from home brings up the spectre of a fear that has long plagued me.
The mental image is one of me being unconscious and taken to the hospital. I cannot tell them all the things I can’t have. The doctors and nurses therefore use all the normal protocols on me and then poof! I blow up like Violet Beauregarde (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). I always wonder what song the oompa loompas would sing about me.
Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-do
I have another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doom-pa-da-dee
If you are wise, you’ll listen to me
Travellings’s fine when you can eat all the time
It frees you from routine and it broadens your mind
But the food sensitive traveller will be sure to get plucked
Unless she’s got a plan and plenty of luckThat way the hospital will know
Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-da
Given good sense, you will go far
You will travel in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-do
It’s not just the food sensitivities medical personnel must be aware of in my case. I am also allergic to whole categories of medicine like penicillin and sulfa drugs.
I decided that the solution is a medic alert bracelet. This way, short of losing that arm, those details are communicated whether I can speak or not. This is a solution I’ve been avoiding for a while. Wearing one of these bracelets … somehow it has always felt like an admission of defeat or failure. There’s no logic to that, just emotions to get past.
When I logged on to the site today to order one of the bracelets, I figured it was just a way to get my anxious voice to shut it’s yappy mouth. However, by the time the process was complete, I was surprised to discover a profound sense of relief. I can lay this worry down rather than continue to carry it along with my luggage to Nashville. So no oompa loompa songs on the horizon for me. I mean, can you imagine it in Nashville? With Stetsons and cowboy boots?
Plucky Traveller 