Yes.  It is a medic alert pendant.  I have a sulfa allergy, and believe me, with this allergy, you don't know you have it until it's screaming your name....

For the last two years, I have gotten sick wwwaaaayyy too easily.  If you sneezed, I'd get bronchitis.  If you wanted to find what food could give the worst food poisoning this side of the Mississippi, I was your girl.  The irony is that before those terrible two years, I had never really been sick but once or twice.

Anyway, one of these times I caught a stomach virus that gave me fevers exceeding 102 degrees for more than a week.  It's funny how you can feel so cold when your body is so hot.  I went to the doctor and paid $$$ for people to tell me that I was 100% healthy...except for my inability to eat, keep anything down, or regulate my temperature.  The sweet boy I love took care of walking my dogs, bringing me food and drinks, and even saw Sex and the City with me, even though my lights were out five minutes into the movie, and I covered him in fever sweat.  

Then as suddenly as as the sickness started, it was over, and I could not have been happier.  After a week's absence, I showed up to work on a Monday.  The only remnants of my sickness was a small rash on my hands for which my dermatologist prescribed a sulfa drug.

I took the drug around 8 p.m. as I was entering a bubble bath.  By the time I got out, I was shaking so hard I could barely walk.  I had a seizure, and I felt like my entire body was being pierced by needles.  On came the fever and off came the clothes.  I fell asleep shaking so hard that I could not even stand.  When I awoke, the fever was back and bigger than ever.  I dragged myself to the doctor once more.  How I got there, I don't know.  I remember struggling just to grab the keys to the car.  According to my doctor, I was "kind of having a mild Stephen Johnson Reaction".  I don't know if that's true.  My skin did not look nearly as horrible as the people in the pictures but I did have blisters on the insides of my mouth and boils? hives? alien babies? rashes covering all my body.  According to my upset physician, I should have gone to the emergency because I almost died.  I have to say that in the middle of the worst part, I was just focused on the pain.  The words emergency room never even entered my brain.  Some shots, pills, tubes of lotion later and suddenly I was sitting back at home again.

I couldn't eat.  I couldn't move.  My skin hurt so much I could not wear clothes.  I could not walk my beautiful dogs.  I was in so much pain, but I didn't want for anyone to see me (hello, naked here...), so I kept telling my concerned family and friends that I was feeling better even though when I was off the phone I would basically sit there and cry.  

Well, Older Sister called my bluff.  That beautiful woman and my brother-in-law showed up at my door, in the middle of the week, with an armful of food.  She fed me strips of chicken breast and cold grapes and squirted some of my many prescribed lotions on my body, from a distance of course because my skin was gross, the whole time squealing EWWWW every time I pretended to touch her.  Apparently Lobster Girl is no sexy beast :)  My brother-in-law could obviously not participate in this bonding ritual so that sweet man cleaned and vacuumed my whole apartment.  He was like a little tornado with my dirt devil.  This has to be the single most touching and humiliating moment of my life.  Of course she also tattled to anyone within ear shot about how sick I truly was (and how grotesque I looked).  Frequent responses were OH MY GOD..do you have a picture...haha...You're probably wondering the same thing....No.  I do not have a picture.  That would have been the most traumatizing nude in all the land.

Apparently time does heal all wounds because I finally ended up back at work only this time, I couldn't stand for anyone to touch me, and I was wearing long-sleeved shirts to hide my blotchy, scarred body.  For about a month, I could not stand to be touched.  Imagine someone touching you with a hot iron only the iron is not flat, it has needles in it.  I wore pounds of makeup on my face and neck to hide as much as I could.  Even months after everything had passed, when I would exercise, you could see the red scars on my skin.  

Putting on all the weight I had lost was another hurdle.  Even after all the obvious physical symptoms had faded, I had random pangs of nausea, and it was very difficult for me to eat.  It is hard for people to understand why I was obsessed with putting on weight for all those months.  Mainly it was because I could not eat.  It was not a matter of vanity but of health.  I am so afraid to ever be that sick again and how can you be healthy if you can't eat?

It has been more than a year now since this happened, and it was a giant wake-up call.  I completely changed the way I eat, and, with the exception of the occasional baked good, eat clean.  I drink teas and water now, not coffee (although I break this rule sometimes because I am human and coffee is heaven).  You know what?  I have not gotten seriously sick since then.  The occasional cold, maybe, but nothing serious enough to make me pass out in a public bathroom (true story).

The funny thing is that apparently, I had been exhibiting signs of a sulfa allergy all my life.  I had these constant baby hives on my arms and legs that made me self-conscious about wearing shorts, so I never wore them.  Since I learned of my allergy, I stopped using any products with sulfates.  Hello captain obvious...they all disappeared.  I wear shorts all I want now.  Cellulite be damned, I have a renewed appreciation for all skin.