My First Time in the Hospital
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| Cafe Du Monde, Decatur Street, French Quarter, New Orleans |
It was a gloomy, rainy morning in early April. A light mist fell over the cobblestone streets and red brick buildings as I walked with my sister, mom, aunt, and grandma. They were all bundled up in sweaters, coats, and rain jackets, complaining about the cold weather and rain; but I was walking in a flowy, sleeveless dress because I had brought nothing warmer. It was my first time in New Orleans, and for some reason, I expected it to be warm and sunny all the time, especially so late in the spring. I didn’t mind the rain and cold however, I always liked it that way because I thought it looked pretty. It looked even prettier in New Orleans than it did at home.
“Don’t you want my jacket?” my mom questioned for the hundredth time. “No, I’m fine. We’re almost there, anyway,” I answered, smiling at her concern. We were walking to one of the nicest restaurants in the city to attend my cousin’s bridal brunch. She was about ten years older than me, and though I didn’t know her as well as some of my other cousins, she had asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, so I happily accepted. The wedding fell on my sixteenth birthday, and I looked forward to celebrating it in New Orleans. My whole family arrived the day before, after a short and uneventful flight. It was the day of the brunch, and the next day would be the wedding, as well as my birthday. The trip so far hadn’t exactly gone to plan, with various mishaps and incidents. My six-year-old cousin, who was supposed to be the flower girl, dropped a bowling ball on her foot the night before and now could barely fit her fancy shoes on. My little sister realized once we stepped into the hotel that she had forgotten her dress, and my mom had been annoyed and stressed out about everything since the plane ride. Despite all of this, I was happy and excited, and probably the only one who was.
I loved going to new places and seeing new things, meeting new people, and trying new food. The one thing that always seemed to hold me back from that was my food allergies. Ever since I was a baby, I had been allergic to many different things. At first, it was almost everything you could think of: dairy, nuts, wheat, and even fruits like oranges, apples, and grapes. After the first few years of my life, most of it just naturally went away, but the one thing that never did was dairy. When I was younger it was a source of great unhappiness for me; I remember missing out on birthday parties, school events, and even simple things like going out to dinner, all because I couldn’t be around dairy. But, I was used to it at this point since I was old enough to know which foods I could eat and which foods to avoid. To me, it was just an annoying inconvenience, and I never really thought of it as something very serious or life-threatening. My parents were always extremely cautious about it, and that cautiousness eventually wore off on me, so I had never experienced any accidents or surprise allergic reactions.
As we walked through the double doors of the hotel restaurant, I looked around at the beautiful scenery. The hallways were lit with a soft glow, illuminating the rough brick walls. A doorman led us up two flights of winding stairs and down a long hallway until we entered a room filled with circular tables, covered in cream-colored tablecloths that matched the velvet-covered chairs. The walls were covered in gold, flowery wallpaper, and the whole room was filled with natural light streaming in from the open balcony doors, looking out at a beautiful garden, glistening with dew and raindrops.
My cousin Claire ran over to greet us with a huge smile on her face and two glasses of champagne in her hands for my mom and grandma. “Oh my gosh, I’m so happy y’all could make it!” she exclaimed. We all hugged her and told her how beautiful everything looked, but she was soon swept away in a crowd of other people waiting to greet and congratulate her. After seemingly endless conversations with distant relatives who I had met once when I was too young to even remember, and several toasts from Claire’s close friends and family, we finally found our seats at the tables. The menus were beautiful, lined with gold borders and scripted in an elegant cursive writing. As I read through the many choices, I realized how hungry I really was, and that I had not eaten one bite of food since the Atlanta airport the morning before. When the waiter came to our table, I ordered some fruit and a breakfast sandwich, and made sure to ask him to not add anything with dairy. He was very understanding and assured me everything would be handled carefully so as to not contaminate my food. I ordered some coffee as well, which I never did because I honestly hate coffee, but I saw everyone else at the table ordering it and thought I would give it another try. The food was delicious, even the coffee.
After a couple hours, we said our thank yous and goodbyes, and started the walk back to the hotel. The clouds had cleared enough for a few streams of sunlight to beam down onto the wet pavement, but the air was still cool and moist. Despite the chilly breeze, I started to feel clammy and hot, and soon I felt sweat tickling my temple and the back of my neck. Chillbumps rose on my arms like I had a fever, but I knew I wasn’t sick. My breath grew more and more shallow with each step, and I started to see the people walking right ahead of me as blurry, distant figures. I knew something wasn’t right, but my brain felt fuzzy and out of focus. I kept walking, putting all my focus into not falling over right there in the street, and hoping no one would notice. “Maybe I’m just a little dehydrated. I’ll be fine once I get some water,” I tried to assure myself.
“Are you okay?” I heard my moms voice in my ear. I hadn’t even noticed that she was now walking next to me. “Yeah, I just feel a little weird,” I whispered faintly, “I just need some water when we get back to the hotel.” If she said anything after that I didn’t hear it or remember it. At this point it felt like all my senses were malfunctioning; I could barely hear, see, or feel anything but the tightness in my throat and pounding in my head. On the inside I was starting to panic, but it was more of a feeling than actual thoughts, because I couldn’t focus on anything. Every step was draining, and my head was spinning. I tried to take deep breaths and calm myself as I followed my mom through the hotel doors. The elevator ride was only a few seconds to our room on the second floor, but it might as well have been the fiftieth floor for how long it felt in that moment.
I walked into our hotel room and the cold air hit my sweaty, damp face. It was all I could do to make it to the bed and flop down. The last thing I saw was the white popcorn ceiling before my eyes went black.
When my eyes opened again, I was looking at another white popcorn ceiling, but this one was obviously different. It was much higher and cleaner than the one in the hotel room. I heard distant clattering, beeping and unfamiliar voices, and as my eyes opened a bit more I made out my moms face in the corner of the room. As I blinked for my vision to clear, I saw that she was in conversation with a nurse, and realized I was laying in a hospital bed. One of them must have seen my head turn, and they both came over to see me. “How are you feeling?” asked the nurse. “What happened?” I asked, ignoring her question. “You had an allergic reaction to something at the brunch. You passed out when we got to the hotel,” my mom told me.
I was released from the hospital about an hour later, feeling very tired and disoriented, but otherwise not too bad. I was surprised that it had finally happened, after almost sixteen years of not having any reactions. In the car on the way back to the hotel my mom and I discussed what happened, both of us confused about what had caused the reaction. We went over everything I had eaten, but couldn’t find a single thing that would have had dairy in it. Once we made it back to the hotel room, I slept the rest of the night, exhausted from the events of the day.
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| Catholic Church, New Orleans |
What I really enjoyed about your story was the way you used really good descriptions in a way that me as the reader I really get a clear image and picture the scenery in which you described. I also really liked that you included dialog throughout the story because it really pulled the story together and made the connections with me as the reader.
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