Prison Guard Co-Workers

Not technically Prison Guards, but they sure are acting like it. All because of a teeny tiny little allergic reaction I had to food last Friday. As many of you know, I'm not supposed to have wheat, dairy, peanuts, or bananas due to them clogging up my sinuses, making my ears itch, giving me headaches, and generally making me miserable. I haven't had real genuine ice cream or anything with peanuts in it in a whole year.

Last Friday, one of my co-workers brought a package of those ice cream cones dipped in chocolate with peanuts on top to work for everyone. It's a bad time of the month for me to be resisting cravings and those ice cream cones were screaming my name. I finally caved and chose to brush off the peanuts and take two bites of chocolate covered chocolate ice cream and then throw the rest of the cone away. I really didn't think two bites would do much damage.

OOPS!!!

Within minutes my nose was itching like crazy and I could feel my face starting to swell. The woman sitting nearest to me looked my way and began to have a slight freak-out over my state of appearance, which got everyone else's attention & they soon joined her. I managed to control the reaction with Benadryl for the last hour of the day and by the time I got home I was pretty much fine - although a bit sleepy. It really wasn't a bad reaction compared to what happens when I get stung by a bee.

Fast Forward to This Week:
Tuesday they brought in chips & dip with caramel/chocolate covered pecans for snacks. They all ate them in front of me & refused to let me have ANY at all. Not even one little caramel/chocolate pecan (I do NOT have a pecan allergy) because the box said that they were processed in a factory with peanuts and there was dairy in the chocolate.

Wednesday was the worst. It was someone's birthday & they brought in Cheesecake (my co-workers are big on food). They wouldn't even let me have one tiny little bite. No matter how much explaining I did that I was pretty sure the ice cream thing had a whole lot more to do with the peanuts than the dairy. Have I mentioned that Cheesecake is like a drug for me? I ADORE Cheesecake. To watch my entire department eating it & hear their "mmmmmmmmm this is GOOD" comments was torture. But, like I said, they'd make excellent Prison Guards - no sneaking contraband for me.

I suppose the up side to this is that it'll make losing weight a slightly less difficult battle. It still sucks though.