So yesterday there was a bit of a health crisis that I went through and definitely was not fun. In fact it was quite frightening and caused me a great deal of momentary panic.

Last night my father’s wife served us crab for dinner. It was well cooked of course, and with a little cocktail sauce was very tasty. I quite enjoyed it, and ’twas very filling.

Less than an hour later, I was on Vindictus, power leveling my new Hurk character. As I played on, I noticed some tingling sensations on my scalp-It began to get itchy. I didn’t think anything of it initially, but as time went on, I noticed it more and more-Not just on my scalp, but beginning to cover my body. Not only was the itch becoming fierce, but so were my bowels. After while I noticed an intense acid buildup.

I  got up to look for my emergency pack of Zantac, that’s when all hell broke loose. As I moved around I noticed how itchy I was, and was furiously battling back by scratching all over. I started to feel bumps forming on my skin. I had hives.

The only thing I figure would cause this is the crab dinner-Obviously it’s all I had eaten in the last 8 hours or so, but why? I’ve had cooked/boiled crab plenty of other times before.

For minutes, I was frantically looking for that pack of Zantac unsuccessfully. I searched my tabletop among my vitamins, all the different bags I use for work, the gym, the laptop bags, even went outside and searched the van. My mind was in a panic, the intense burning of both my skin and stomach was becoming overwhelming.

I thought, maybe a shower would relieve the itching sensations at least, so I went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror, and I saw it-The hives-circular little growths protruding within my skin, on my chest, my arms, my back, even my face.  Oh sneck! I look like a Cardassian, minus grey-green skin. This is bad.    (Hello, fellow Star Trek fans!)

At that point my resolve was leaning on calling 911. I went upstairs to inform my father of what was happening, and he said that his wife was experiencing the same symptoms, her skin was breaking out, tho it didn’t seem as severe on her.

Benadryl, an over the counter allergy medicine was her suggestion. And so I took it, and tried to calm down. I returned to my room and sat at my desk. My body was growing weak with each moment. I moved over some items that I use to cover my equipment and computer-Behold, there was the pack of Zantac-Right where it shouldn’t be. Thank goodness for that at least. I took a dose of that along with Ibuprofen to combat the pain.

Within about five minutes, I think the allergy came it’s peak. Not only was the itching becoming unbearable-I could feel the hives on every extremity-Not only was the stomach acid building up to explosive proportions, but now …now I was having a hard time breathing. Yes, this would be the peak of this allergic reaction.

I managed to shut everything (computers and music gear) down, and drop onto my bed absolutely exhausted-Hoping the medications and my body’s natural recovery would subside this …event.

As I was falling asleep, I had the silly notion that perhaps the spirit of the fiddler crabs in my aquarium were pissed off that I was eating their marine cousin for dinner.

Some nine hours later, I woke up to the (now) usual pain in my hands, but for the itching and stomach acid build-up, it seemed to have dissipated. Thank goodness.

What have I learned from this experience?

It could have been a freak accident. Maybe it was a bad crab? Maybe pollution is so bad that it’s affecting the crabs. I really can’t say.

I do think that the older I get, the more I notice how my body reacts to different foods. When I was younger, I thought nothing of it-I’d try anything-The weirder and more interesting the better. Now I have realize that I can’t just stuff anything in my mouth. Perhaps I’ve always had an allergic reaction to shellfish; But now that I’m older perhaps the immune system doesn’t want to deal with it. And that sucks because now more than ever I want to try new things.

Goodbye, crab. You are off the menu.