I remember fears we had in common: What if we found ourselves barely able to read the rows of letters and numbers on the screen when we covered one eye? What if our "bent backs" revealed distorted spines and 'positive' shows up in our reports? How shall we pretend not to care if we gained weight, or weighed more than the boys?
Yet one thing that bothered me most was not quite what everyone experienced. I carefully made sure my booklet was faced down, or pretended to be poring over the facts of my babyhood while everyone compared their birth weight, head circumference, length.... All because I had a distinctive, stark red label plastered above my name on the cover: DRUG ALLERGY.
As a child I was more familiar with the dominant meaning of 'drug'- illegal, poisonous, addictive, rehab - all which meant I feared my friends judging me should they notice the cover. Of course, in retrospect I would think myself silly to actually have such irrational fears, because my present self would care less about what others think of my drug allergy.
But I remember this fear I experienced because I recently have another stark red label plastered over my appointment card. So I'm writing àbout another childhood fear that I otherwise would have forgotten.
Well, it's red for an obvious reason: A drug allergy determines what medicines I should not take, which the doctor needs to be aware of. But this very reason that served (and still serves) to protect me actually put me on tenterhooks.
I'm curious as to how far this label would follow me. I'm allergic to Penicillin, and I hear people telling me that means I can't take much medicine. But I have no idea what effects Penicillin has on me, or if I'm still allergic to it. And what makes this most interesting is if I actually encounter an experience where I have to make an important decision regarding my health, like that between Penicillin and possibly death.
The levels of experience that writing has helped me to remember and prepared me to anticipate...
