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It's Just the Way it Is

*... a story....pulling out the nonsense card for hump-day article* It was a busy morning. The whole team was not taking their eyes off their monitors. Phones were busy ringing, too. Then in few more moments, as the clock closely ticks to lunch break, the boss comes out of his room where he was having a closed-door conference call with the big heads screaming, "We got the deal, team! BigCompanyWithBigPay is our client now! You got ten minutes to relax and prepare. This calls for a lunch out. On me. In ten minutes, you are not in the lobby, you are not included. Chop! chop!" He said the "chop! chop" with matching hand claps.

Soft hoots of celebration can be heard from the team and you hear the hurried final taps of the keyboard, and soft "good byes" of those who were on the phone. Chairs' carpet-muffled wheels can be heard too as they get dragged back to proper positions with their paired up desks. All in quick motion. It was not Friday yet. But the boss calls for the lunch out who would not want to go? I will be rushing to check what these fantabolous people wrote lately.. :) go go go!

In less than a minute, the floor is cleared and the lobby is filled with teammates wanting to be in the elevator first. They all made it to the place where their boss intended them to be in for lunch. The place known as "*Dampa*" - where seafood are served fresh from the market beside it. You can either go and buy for your group and tell them what and how you'd like it done or you can just tell them your order and they will do the buying and cooking for you. Frances was nervously looking at the menu in front of her and was quietly listening for everyone's order. In between conversations and laughter, they go, "Squid Calamares!" "Grilled Milkfish!" "Shrimp in Tamarind Soup" "Baked Mussels"

When it was her turn, she cleared her throat and with a soft voice, she said, "Grilled pork belly." There was sudden silence. She looked up and everyone was now looking at her waiting for her to say it was a joke. She knows what they were thinking.

*It is a seafood place why are you ordering pork?* She wishes it was a joke, too. **Hello, dear Read-itizens! How is Wednesday, so far?** The story above can not be very far from my experience the first time I was going to tell my office friends that I have developed .. no scratch that... I was going to tell them that I have deteriorated. I meant my immune system. I am that outlier who will most likely order pork when everyone is most likely to order seafood in a seafood restaurant. It was awkward the first time, but eventually they are the ones ordering that for me. Of all that I would be allergic to: Shrimp and Crab. Heavens! Thank God I can still eat shelled ones. So I still order, clams, mussels, oysters, and fish, etcetera.

I used to not have allergies. By family med history, my dad has asthma, my two sibs have allergies and mom and I do not have any allergies. But I guess that is life - sometimes some things ruin the immune system as we get older. My siblings outgrew their allergies, and I developed food allergy and then rhinitis followed years after. Ah, the reverse! *...the discovery...* I found out about it one time when we were on assignment and I was living with my officemates offshore. I super loved my officemate's chili shrimps, and my other officemate's shrimp in tamarind soup. One time, I and two other officemates, decided to try one of the soups in the alley in the marketplace. It was delicious I had two servings. When we got home, my hands got itchy and I suddenly have tiny itchy bumps. I ignored it. Anti histamines were not part of my travel meds then. And what do I know about allergies, then? I was able to confirm it in three occasions. Yes, I was in denial for a long time. My friends and I ordered garlic shrimp pizza. I had reaction. My friends and I ate tempura. I had reaction. I started bringing anti-histamines from then on. We also thought that the shrimp and crab should be fresh so I would not have allergic reaction. But that got foiled when we were in Bohol, freshly-caught crab cooked with coconut, a small bump of a rash started to form on my face and got bigger and then my neck started to show rashes as well. hahaha. So much for fresh. Adult-Onset Allergies. It is what they call it. I think mine's progression was gradual. I have a friend who suddenly became allergic to seafood. Hers is the worst. It takes days for her skin reaction to heal. *...the cure...* Some say maybe we can get desensitized but I find that too risky. Avoidance is still my best pick among these four suggestions to "treating" allergies : avoidance medications immunotherapy emergency ephinephrine *(Source: Natalie Silver, December 16, 2016. Can You Outgrow Allergies? [Blog Post]. Retrieved from* *https://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/can-you-outgrow-them#Treating-allergies**)* That may work for children but I doubt it works the same way for adults. It is just the way it is. Other source of good information about this is this one: `Shanley Pierce, February 5, 2020. Adult-onset food allergies: More common than you think [Blog Post]` `Retrieved from: https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/02/adult-onset-food-allergies-more-common-than-you-think/` ***You got anything weird you discovered late in your adult life?*** ***or Anything you discovered about yourself later on in your life not necessarily when you were older? Just something you did not know about yourself?*** © Pichi28 | ***#ClubBrokeBCH*** All Original Content Unless specified otherwise...

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