Story Time

Once upon a time under a mango tree, a white girl decided to be a part of the mango harvest (and by harvest, I only mean one tree in our yard) in Haiti. She isn't quite able to climb like the natives, so she decided to be the catcher of the picked mangoes on the ground while the natives threw them from above.

All was wonderful while she caught the mangoes and got all sticky from the syrupy milk that's in the mango vines. She and the natives played speed games to catch the mangoes and had a generally merry time.

After the fun, the white girl washed the sticky stuff off of her tanned skin and continued in normalcy until the next day, which was anything but normal...

After a night of restless sleep and seemingly random and unexplainable itching, the white girl, named Crash, got out of bed. After changing Lonia's diaper and wondering what that weird look on her face was, Crash exited her room and upon approaching her best friend, Dee, opened her mouth to ask a question. But Crash didn't have to speak, for the look on Dee's face had answered the question already.

"Whaaat in the wooooorld???" asked Dee.

"Yeah, I feel deformed, but from the look on your face, I must LOOK deformed as well," Crash answered.

"What happened?"

"I have no idea. What does it look like?"

"Not good," replied Dee, graciously understating the monster face Crash was wearing.

It turns out that after 23 years of life without a single allergic reaction to anything ever, Crash was allergic to the milk in the vines from which mangoes hang from the trees. Her face swelled up, barely leaving enough room for Crash to see beyond her protruding eyelids. She developed nasty rashes on every single solitary spot where the milk stuck to her, including both arms, both hands and all across her chest, and the same rash covered her swollen face.

Day one was nothing but questions, only a few of which were answered in the least. Pain was a general constant. Itching and burning came later that morning.

After a virtually sleepless night, which Dee joined Crash for just in case an emergency took place, day two was when monster face took its full swing. The resident nurse, Monique, went on a trip to find as many remedies for Crash as she could. She brought back, 3 creams, 2 lotions, 2 syrups and 1 box of pills.

None of them worked.

Two days passed.

Finally, Dee and her husband decided that Crash had been through enough, so they took her on a bumpy one and a half hour ride to a clinic. At the clinic, the guy in scrubs told them, after looking at the 3 creams, 2 lotions and box of pills, that they were using all the right medicines, they just needed to wait longer.

But after seeing the way Dee's face went savage and hostile as it did (and Crash's would have if she could have moved any facial muscles), the guy in scrubs said that a shot of Promethazine would help. But the clinic didn't have any.

Dee walked briskly across the street where there happened to be a hospital. She entered the hospital pharmacy, but Dee didn't have small enough change to buy the medicine (an ironically common problem in Haiti) so she waited 10 minutes while her temporary guide went to buy a coke to break the change, drink it and come back.

Upon his return, Dee asked for the exact shot she needed and the pharmacist said, "Oh, we don't have this."

"Of course, you don't," Dee said, dejected.

"But we do have individual doses in the operating room. But I can't sell that to you," the pharmacist replied.

"Then give it to me," Dee said with a sternness that cannot possibly be ignored.

And the pharmacist did just that.

Now, whether the shot worked or not, you will find out in the next edition of Story Time.