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Nina Brazent hasn't added a story.
*If you're using paypal and need my email, use: notjusttheater (at) gmail (dot) com*
Sunday, July 31, I was hanging out with friends when I got bitten by fire ants -- the third time since March, 2016.
The previous times I had experienced more extreme reactions than most, but this time was different. Within 15 minutes I began to break into hives, all over my body -- I have never broken into hives before in my life.
Luckily, I was with friends, who suggested Benedryl, and on offering to go pick me up some at the drug store I opted to ride along so I could take it sooner rather than later.
Two blocks after leaving my house I started coughing and generally having trouble breathing. My head was hot and I was having trouble turning my head because my neck was so swollen. I told my friend I wanted to go to the Emergency Room instead of the drug store.
Since neither of us was familiar with the area, or where the closest hospitals were, we turned around to ask the two police cruisers we had just passed. The officers proceed to take one look at me and insisted on calling EMS and having me wait to get checked out.
After about 10 minutes a third police cruiser arrived and finally the fire truck, and the nice fireman came out and proceeded to ask me more questions, quickly insisting that I was way past Benedryl and that I needed to go to the hospital - either with my friend or an ambulance. I was feeling increasingly worse, and didn't want to wait for the ambulance, so I said I wanted to go with my friend. They let us go on the condition that if my breathing got worse, we would immediately call 911.
Twelve minutes later we arrived at Our Lady of the Lake ER in Baton Rouge, where there was no parking, so my friend dropped me off and drove around to the other side of the hospital to the parking garage.
I checked in, told them I was having trouble breathing, and less than five minutes later was back at the front desk asking for a vomit bag because I suddenly started having stabbing pains in my stomach and felt like I was going to throw up -- I get nauseous often, but RARELY actually throw up because of illness.
To make the rest of the story short(er), I basically am in the 1% of the population that is deathly allergic to (southern) fire ants -- I am the 1%...
Now, a couple of problems:
1) Allergic reactions to fire ants get increasingly worse each time you are bitten.
2) Fire ants are EVERYWHERE, and incredibly hard to avoid. Pretty much a given that I will get bitten a couple times during the course of a year, even if I'm careful.
3) Even with my insurance, and the "discount" card I found, an EpiPen is over $500! ($527 to be exact, this campaign will be raising slightly more because of fees and such).
Now, I am working on a long term solution to find more affordable EpiPens, but the fact is that I need to have one on hand ASAP - especially as in this hot season the ants are out in force! Grass, sidewalks, you name it!
This campaign (if you're still reading, after this long ramble) is purely to get an Emergency EpiPen Quickly!
Please, thank you, and forever grateful for any support, sharing, and donations of any amount!!!
Love,
Nina/Nomi/Naomi
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