I checked myself into the emergency room. I live in a small town, population of 8,700 people at the time of this event. We have mediocre medical care at best. There just isn’t a draw for high value medical professionals to move to the middle of nowhere and serve a small community of people.

As I lay in bed talking to the nurse about what had happened, he quickly assured me that everything was fine. I walked in after all, I was speaking, I didn’t arrive by ambulance, etc. How bad could it be? The EKG test on my heart didn’t show a heart attack, and all the other tests were showing up mostly normal. There was one test that returned acidic, that if caught would have set in motion a treatment for what eventually brought me down. However, the doctor attributed the acidity to my ketogenic diet instead of a medical cause. The doctors final diagnosis, I had an allergic reaction to something.

I was perplexed. I’ve had allergic reactions. I’ve had anaphylaxis. I am very familiar with allergies and their affects on the body. This event felt similar but not similar enough. The nurses proceeded to give me fluids, some antihistamines, watch me for a couple of hours, and then sent me home.