A reoccurrence of chronic mental constipation has yielded FishTanked #19. This comic was originally written and illustrated in the summer of 2006.

I’ve had bad allergies since I was a teenager. Although I certainly can’t say exactly what caused them to suddenly crop up I do know that they started just a few weeks after suffering through a monstrously bad bout of food poisoning from good ol’ McDonald’s. I had one of those holiday themed Shamrock shakes (here’s a good piece of advice, don’t drink green milkshakes) and ended up vomiting violently for the next two days. I lost twenty five pounds, probably nearly died, and have had pretty severe allergies ever since. Any other person would’ve won a multimillion dollar settlement but all I got was a coupon for a free cheeseburger. Lucky me.

Nevertheless, after two decades of suffering with all sorts of environmental and indoor allergies I finally decided to do something about it. Sure I’d been taking nasal steroids and antihistamines but this time I was going to get serious. So I got an allergy panel done. This is the sort of test where they “scratch” you with 60+ allergens and then inject you with 20 different things just to see what your body doesn’t like. In my case it was just about everything they injected me with except for shellfish. Apparently I’m not allergic to shellfish, which would be helpful if I actually ate seafood.

Long story short, the allergies were severe enough to warrant allergy shots and so this past Friday I embarked on my first round of injections. On my right arm were the indoor allergies (which I’d shown to be highly sensitive to) and on my left were the outdoor seasonal type allergies which were less severe. The appointment and the shots themselves went by fine. I showed up, they stuck me with needles and I was on my way. However just two hours after the shots I started to experience numbness in my right arm just below the injection site. I took a look and had a huge black and blue mark. A few hours later my right elbow was inflamed and by that evening my face and hands were numb.

Obviously I called the doctor’s office since I really wasn’t interested in sticking myself with one of those epipens and wasn’t all that interested in dying. Trouble is the doctors were pretty sure it was all in my head. Apparently you can’t have a reaction to such a low dose. What I was experiencing wasn’t a result of mold being injected into my body but instead an anxiety attack -complete with black and blue marks and joint pain. The recommendation was to get more shots. So if there’s no comic next week then it probably means I’m dead (or just really, really anxious).

After a long bout of dementia, I’m pleased to announce FishTanked #18. This comic was originally written and illustrated in the summer of 2006.