I have a confession to make… I didn’t bring my epipen.
One would think that this (un)seasoned traveler would know better than to travel abroad without her epipen, right? Unfortunately not. My allergies are almost like rain on a cloudy day. You bring your umbrella just in case, but for the most part it doesn’t rain (or it’s at least a slight drizzle). Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t do this on purpose! I went to the doctor’s office to get a prescription, but didn’t realize it would not be here on time before I left. So what can I do? Just hope for the best, I suppose.
On a normal day, I avoid the foods that I know will give me an allergic reaction. Those include (most if not all) nut products, bananas, fresh pineapples, kiwis, and pretty much most desserts. Back home I’m okay with knowing what food I can and can’t eat. It gets a lot harder when I’m travelling elsewhere.
We spent the first day travelling from Pittsburgh to Rome so most of my meals were provided by the airlines or were foods I could choose from the various restaurants at the airport during our long layover in JFK. So far so good, I think? Generally, I can tell what foods to avoid and which I can eat. The problem is that my allergies are really… vague. Once I ate pizza and had the worst cramps imaginable followed by trouble breathing due to the cramps. Am I allergic to pizza? Since then I avoided eating pizza. Good thing, I’m in the pizza country of the world, right?
I thought I was okay just eating pasta too, until this past dinner when we were served a set menu of pasta, a meat dish, and dessert. We ate at Ristorante Da Massi, a quaint restaurant hidden between multiple other restaurants on a narrow side street. Many others on this trip also have certain food restrictions so we were given slips of paper by our tour guide Matteo to ensure that we wouldn’t accidentally eat something we shouldn’t have. I was really excited to eat this pasta. The description made it seem so delicious and it even had pieces of meat added to it.
But oh no, what’s happening now? Is my tongue getting itchy? My bottom lip started to feel bumpy. I stopped eating the pasta. Thankfully my roommates offered to help finish it. Part of me wondered if there was something in the pasta sauce that could’ve caused the reaction. Maybe it was pine nuts added to the sauce or perhaps it was something else? The next dishes made me worry. It was a cut of pork with some sort of cheese sauce and a side of salad. I’m always concerned with salads because of the chance of nuts being added to it or the dressing. I started becoming more paranoid as we waited for the next dishes. The dessert was tiramisu, something I was opted out from eating because of the chance of there being hazelnuts. I figured the alternative dessert would be fruits because of its natural sweetness and it’s easy to prepare.
I sat there eagerly waiting for my alternative dessert. The waiter came by and handed me a cup of sliced fresh pineapples. I couldn’t eat those either.
So here’s to the rest of the trip! Let’s hope I can avoid as many allergies as possible. Tomorrow is supposed to be full of cloudy skies and rain for most of the day. I might not have an epipen, but at least I have my umbrella.