on patch tests and popeye chasing the dragon

As you'll recall, I had a gruesome allergic reaction some weeks ago. After sitting through a blood test, keeping a painfully detailed food journal and being poked and prodded by three different doctors, we finally got down to the nitty gritty -- I had my first skin test done yesterday.

And the results are in... my allergist is insane. For the third straight visit, she has taken an object (first a tongue depressor and then the plunger part of a hyperdermic needle) and raked it down the length of my forearm to test the epidermal response. Now I'm no doctor but I can safely say that when you scrape skin, it will get red and angry looking. After one experiment, you needn't run any more tests. I'm confident in my belief that there's a direct cause and effect relationship there. In other words... knock it the fuck off! That shit hurts!

The test itself was rather unpleasant. First of all, the doctor took a red marker and made evenly-spaced dots down my arm. Attractive! It was quite the attention-getter on the subway ride home, let me tell you! I looked like I got into a fight with a Sharpie and lost.

Next up, the doctor dabbed various liquids to the left and right of the red hash marks. Easy enough. I thought the last step was to just wait for a reaction. Wrong. She then pricked each and every drop of liquid with a needle. That totally sucked! Some of them started to bleed and others got all red and itchy. I was rocking quite the puss on my face, let me tell you.

That allergist is a total weirdo. My primary care physician warned me about her. When he was writing up the referral, he mentioned that she was "neurotic." I should note that my PCP is high-strung, somewhat pissy and has a serious God complex. After he, of all people, issued such a warning, I gulped loudly.

And he was right. She's got an unsettling nervous energy about her. While she was inspecting my arm yesterday, she instructed me to turn my head. At first I thought it was for some medical purpose (you know, like a hernia test) but then I realized that she just doesn't like being watched. My fixed gaze on the gnarly happenings on my own arm was freaking her out or something.

Truthfully, I didn't mind not looking at her. She's got an ashen complexion, thick eyebrows, a broad nose and beady eyes. However, I think a quick application of some tweezers could vastly improve the nose and eye situation. But the rest of her is beyond help. She's really skinny and bony, so much so that her latex gloves don't fit snugly on her hands. I've never seen baggy latex gloves on a doctor before. They looked better suited for scrubbing pots and pans rather than examining patients.

And I have to do it all over again next week! With a brand new batch of allergens which promise to be more potent! The "mild" test already caused red dots and raised bumps on my arm so after next week's round, I'm sure I'm going to have hideous track marks and forearms the size of Popeye's. If Popeye gave up the spinach in favor of smack, of course. Although, methinks Popeye would be more fond of the 'roids.

Olive Oyl is a prime heroin candidate though. She, along with the Sea Hag, are grossly underweight so they could very well already be addicted. And while I'm not certain, I'm sure the Sea Hag has some fucked up teeth which would lend credence to my addiction theory.

Ugh, wouldn't that be awful if they got Wimpy hooked? I mean, fat boy could stand to drop some weight but judging by his eat hamburger now/pay later tactics, he'd forever be bogarting their stash. That's not cool, Wimpy. No one likes a mooch. But I'm sure Popeye could dispatch Alice the Goon to collect the owed money so it would all work out.

Um, I think it's safe to say that only I could start off a post discussing an allergy test and wind up with an entire cast of cartoon characters strung out on H.