Page 11 of Must Love Hockey
“Because I’m working on a theory,” he says, crossing his arms across his lab coat. “Have you been bitten within the last few months?”
“Well, yes,” I admit. “One time. I was bitten by a tick on the world's most stressful golf trip.”
The doctor blinks. “Why was it stressful? Because of the ticks?”
“No, because I'm terrible at golf, and my boyfriend was trying to impress his boss.” I know I’m oversharing now, but I’ve been in this doctor’s office for over two hours already, and I’m starting to lose it. First, I endured a battery of prick tests which made my back itch, then I had a blood test, and now I just want to go home.
“When and where did you receive this bite?”
“Um, November. It was right after Halloween, and we were at a resort in North Carolina.”
It was the only one of Charles's corporate boondoggles that had involved travel. I'd hated everything about it except for the hotel room with the king-sized bed in it. The moment Charles removed my dress, though, he'd found the tick. After that, we were both too squicked out for sexy times.
Worst. Trip. Ever.
“But what does a tick bite have to do with an allergic reaction?” I ask. “Do you think I have Lyme disease?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure you have a different tick-borne illness called alpha-gal syndrome. It’s carried by the Lone Star tick, which lives in warmer climates like North Carolina. It can transmit a particular sugar molecule into the blood stream. And in some people, this triggers a delayed allergic response to red meat.”
“Red meat,” I say slowly. “All of it?”
“All of it,” he says firmly.
And I just gulp.
* * *
Two days later, I’m sitting at the NYU library, wondering what to eat for dinner.
I’m still trying to get my head around everything the doctor told me. Before I left his office, he gave me a sheaf of papers to read and another prescription for an epinephrine auto-injector.
Honestly it hasn’t even sunk in yet. I’m not used to thinking so hard about what I can and cannot eat.
My mother doesn’t understand it at all, either. She thinks I’m exaggerating. “It’s not pork, just pork broth,” she said last night when I turned down her homemade soup.
“I can’t eat that,” I’d protested. “It could make me sick.”
She’d rolled her eyes at me. And part of me doesn’t blame her. Because the whole thing sounds crazy. A food allergy you can catch from a bug? It sounds like a sci-fi plot.
My new EpiStick is tucked into a special pocket in my book bag. If I order take-out food that is somehow cross contaminated with red meat, I won’t die. Probably.
“You have to be really careful for a while,” the doctor had warned me. “Some people recover from alpha-gal after a year or two and can eat whatever they want. But do your body a favor and avoid the allergens for a nice long time. It’s impossible to guess the magnitude of your next allergic response. Read the labels, ask questions, and keep your EpiStick nearby.”
Right. No problem.
When I can’t stand my gurgling stomach any longer, I head for the cafeteria and order a Caesar salad. And I buy a small bag of peanuts, because I need the protein, but I’m afraid to eat any meat at all.
Chicken and fish are supposed to be no trouble for me. The problem is that I can’t quite forget the feeling of my swelled-up throat and itching lips.
Just as I carry my strange meal to a table, my phone rings. It’s Charles. I fumble to set the tray down and answer it quickly. “Hi, baby,” I say quietly. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he says, sounding a little testy. “Are you sure you can’t come out tonight? There’s still forty minutes until our reservation.”
“There’s no way,” I say immediately. “Big test tomorrow.”
Besides, he’s entertaining clients at a steak place, which is thelastplace I want to go right now. I brought this up when he first asked if I was free tonight, and he’d said, “They have other food, too. You can order the fish.”
But I’m too freaked out by the whole thing to walk into a steak restaurant just yet. I’d have to quiz the staff about whether the foods are grilled together in the same spot. And I don’t want to learn that new skill under Charles’s critical eye.
