What the hell is an EpiPen!

Now I know that some weeks of your life are epic but trust me this week was by any measure unforgetable. I don’t mean in a social media context but in a real life heart stopping way.

As many of you are aware that my new regime of four day weekends means that my life has taken on a more relaxed pace and I am becoming used to more time to do what I want rather than what I need. But on Wednesday morning when my alarm went off and I didn’t hear it, life took on some urgency, I needed to be in work and in class in 30 minutes.

This means that the niceties of life cease to exist. Gone is the shower, breakfast and the obligatory cup of strong coffee, all that is left is the dart for the door and get to work asap.

Now this is the strange bit, how come you leave ten minutes later but arrive at your destination ten minutes earlier. How does that work?

So I am in the office contemplating wether or not I can catch up on my caffeine hit which I have missed  when my colleague who I work with decides to have a breakfast bar and a coffee because she to had overslept. This is were it gets a little wild, so I suggest that if you are of a nervous disposition stop reading now and go and do something far more interesting.

Picture the scene, I am in a semi comatose state waiting for an influx of caffeine when with some urgency my colleague discovers she has eaten a breakfast bar laced with all sorts of nuts and heathy stuff that apparently is very good for you but she is allergic to.

I can say with some authority that the effect of this oversight was dramatic to say the least. Within 20 seconds she was gasping for breath issuing instructions that I could barely  understand and dropped to the floor in a semi conscious state.

Now as a typical bloke I didn’t want her to know I was clueless and as my wife has said when she has had medical episodes I needed to appear to be calm and stay in control. Now thats easier said than done, I was in way beyond my comfort zone and expertise.

She was giving me instructions that were bearly audible and way outside my understanding. She instructed me to find an EpiPen in her bag. I had no idea what an EpiPen was let alone what to do with it. With some help from her, I managed to find this life-saving device buried deep inside her bag in her makeup pouch.

So with that hurdle overcome I now need to know what to do with it. Gasping she said I had to inject it into her thigh, for a split second I thought how the hell do I take her tights off and how do I inject her without hurting her (I know this is pointless when you are hanging onto life by a breath but a man of my age is way out of his depth)!

Can I just reassure you all, I did not remove any of her clothing and whilst I was dithering as to how I was going to inject her without hurting her she made the decision for me. All that was required was brute force and ignorance, whilst I was dithering and trying to come to terms with what I had to do she decided that actions speak louder than words and struck the device with such force I thought she had broken her leg.

After a few seconds things began to improve and she started to breath again and normality returned to my world (apart from my heart trying to burst out from my chest).

In that moment I discovered two things, that life as we know it can change in a heartbeat and that to be prepared is always preferable to discovery learning.

So to all my friends out there, I can assure you that I am hopeless in a crisis, I appear to be in control but inside I am screaming. If any of you have allergies that could be life threatening please let me know and show me what to do before it happens so I am prepared and in some sort of control.

One thing I can tell you though is that I didn’t need a caffeine hit after that, I was wired for twenty-four hours and it almost led me to have heart failure.

So for those who are interested my colleague is now recovering and hopefully, we will laugh about this when next time we meet. That is far better than the alternative outcome that could have taken place, which goes to show even grumpy old men can be useful sometimes.