And indeed, I\’ve felt a bit left behind since Sunday.

Imagine a topographic map. That\’s what my skin looked like as clusters of red spots suddenly appeared and swelled together, forming large continents of lumpy edema all over my body. Imagine ten thousand angry mosquito bites. That\’s what my skin felt like as a fiery itching unlike any I had ever known overtook my senses, until I was spasming in bed from trying not to scratch. All of this followed within hours of a very delicious meal at a Mexican restaurant that shall not be named (hint: starts with an S and ends with Neaky Dee\’s), and by virtue of how delicious everything was and how careful I will have to be about food from now on, I can only describe this as a tragedy.

A 2 a.m. trip to Mount Sinai\’s ER + an epinephrine shot à la Pulp Fiction + a bagful of medications that I have to take every four hours = drugged-to-uselessness Jen who still doesn\’t know what the hell she\’s allergic to.

So, apparently it\’s Wednesday today.

I\’d never had an allergic reaction to any food before. Only in recent years have I become open-minded enough with my palate to fully enjoy the freedom of eating the most bizarre foods for no other reason than to try them, in the spirit of Anthony Bourdain. As a kid I always felt really sorry for people who had to carry EpiPens everywhere they went and had to avoid so much as the smell of peanut butter. Who knew I might have to be one of them.

I don\’t remember seeing or tasting anything I hadn\’t had before on that fateful plate of gastronomical delight, but since allergies can develop without warning, there\’s no way for me to know for sure which of the myriad ingredients in that Tex-Mex explosion was the culprit. Allergy tests are notoriously inaccurate to boot, not that I\’ll even have mine before next week earliest.

I\’m hoping my skin will stop freaking out in a day or so and I can get back into the swing of things, fully sober and able to appreciate the sledgehammering of exams to follow while eating as bland a diet as possible until I can get tested.

Moral of the story: this could happen to you. So appreciate what you\’ve got and eat the food you love while you still can, goddammit!