CHAPTER FIVE
DR. BAUER was our next choice. He examined me, and set me up for a battery of allergy tests. There were 72 tests in all. I didn’t care for them much. They made little cuts on my back with a razor, placing a strip of the food or substance (food concentrates, additives, pollen etc. etc.) which would react by inflaming the skin around it. This was all well and good but when I reacted to 68 of them, I found that being allergic to almost everything had some drawbacks. I had to sell my horse because I was allergic to the hair. We had to keep our family dog at my grandparents. Most foods were off the menu. That didn’t bother me all that much, at that time eating was just a waste of time. Time I could have better spent doing something constructive.
Once during this period of possible lethal reactions, my mother and I went to the Safari Club for lunch. The club is a restaurant filled with stuffed animals that the owner had shot by his own hand on countless safaris. You name it, lions, tigers, bears, and antelope. He even had elephant feet end tables. We had lunch there at the club: we were then to go visit the owner’s house to see his private collection. I guess the owner’s wife and my mom were friends from some oil painting class or something. Anyway, we arrived at a big house that was full of the stuffed animals. A ten-foot polar bear greeted us at the door with fangs the size of penny nails, but still, there was also something somehow fluffy and cuddly about it.
After about thirty minutes, the headache began.
It was bearable for a while, not only was I used to headaches, but right then the safari adventure was worth a little discomfort.
As I was looking at the king sized marlin mounted on the wall, my eyesight became fuzzy. I tol