So…as I mentioned, last Thursday I got the stent removed from my bladder. The doctor handed me a pill to take, after, and said it was an antibiotic super pill to make sure I didn’t get an infection from the procedure.

I ran out of heart medication this week (had enough in my pill caddy through Thursday), so I called in the prescription to the pharmacy and then asked them to deliver when they reported it was ready. The pharmacy person on the phone said Oh, you have two prescriptions here, do you want them both? The second turned out to be an antibiotic, called AmoxClav, a generic for something called Augmentin. So I called the doctor’s office, and the assistant said I had another urinary tract infection, based on my sample from last Thursday, so they wanted me to take an antibiotic. I asked, Is it a problem that I’m not starting it until five days later? and she said no.

The name, which started with “Amox” rang a faint bell, but alas, too faint for me to realize what was about to happen. I took my first dose yesterday at noon and my second dose last night before I went to bed, and this morning I had just downed my pills when all of a sudden the fronts of my thighs started to itch. I took a look and they had broken out in a rash. I had just used a laundry service last week to wash and dry and fold a bunch of my stuff, and I thought Oh, maybe I’m allergic to whatever laundry detergent they use! But then I thought No, I’ve been wearing these since yesterday morning, why wouldn’t I break out right away? Even as I sat there pondering this, the rash spread to my inner arms and my stomach, and then my attention wandered to the pill bottle sitting on the table in front of me…

I looked up Augmentin, and found this:

“Augmentin belongs to the penicillin class of antibiotics. Augmentin contains two drugs: amoxicillin and clavulanic acid.”

Well, that explains things: I’m allergic to penicillin and all its derivatives, including amoxicillin. Which it states, clearly, on all my paperwork at every doctor’s office I’ve ever visited, because I have had not one but two previous reactions to amoxicillin and never wanted to repeat it again. Surprise! Goddammit.

So, I called the on-call doctor, it being Saturday, and he called me back and said, Take a Benadryl right away, and if it progresses beyond the rash to a closed-up throat, go to the Emergency Room. Yeah, right, who’s going to drive me? I guess I am.

No Benadryl in the house, of course, so I went on Instacart and ordered an expedited delivery within the next half hour and in the meantime called my pharmacy to make sure it’s ON FILE that I am allergic to penicillin! Meanwhile, although my throat is still open, the end of my nose has gone numb, and I ITCH. Just what I needed—one more thing to make me crazy. Oh, and no antibiotics until Monday, when I can call the doctor and get a new prescription, if she feels it’s warranted, that won’t poison me instead of curing what ails me.

EDIT, A LONG DAY LATER: The worst of this situation is, the doctor has no idea what she has done, considering I am a person with chronic lymphedema. My lymph system DOESN’T WORK, which means it’s not going to eliminate this drug quickly from my system, it’s going to linger there for days longer than with a normal person. And my body’s classic response to any problem is inflammation. I had been working my massage gun and lympha pump and had my legs down to smaller than they have been in a year, and tonight I couldn’t get the lympha pump sleeves to zip over my legs because they are so swollen. Not to mention the rash, the welts, the unbearable itch EVERYWHERE…

This was a good lesson: Ingest NOTHING without looking it up on Google first and finding out what it’s made of. I never will again. Good thing it wasn’t a life-threatening allergy, isn’t it?