That one where the docs had to remind me that I’m allergic to bees

“OK, let’s see. We do have you with a bee allergy.”

A bee allergy?

I have to admit, had to scan the inner recesses of the old noggin to remember that I would have ever had a bee allergy.

Turns out it’s my Ron “Tater Salad” White moment.

He once smart-assed a cop that his alias was “Tater Salad,” and 20 years later, after getting hurled out of a bar in New York City, it came back up.

“You got him. You got the Tater,” you might remember him saying.

My bee allergy is hardly a bee allergy, except in my hospital records.

I think it was back in 2006, when I still lived in a trailer park in Crimora.

Mowing grass in the backyard, I got stung by a group of yellow jackets.

Then, the next week, another set of stings from a swarm of yellow jackets.

That I got stung twice in a week was the issue. The second set of stings caused an allergic reaction that manifest in a giant ball that moved up my leg.

I was told by the ER doc that it could have killed me.

Apparently, I’m allergic to yellow jackets.

Had to carry around an EpiPen for a while, just in case.

I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I had that prescription refilled.

I don’t think I’m allergic to, you know, all bees.

Been stung by honeybees, wasps.

I’m not an insectologist, or whatever. I’m sure there are others.

Stung twice in my life by yellow jackets.

Happens that the second one caused an allergic reaction.

Fifteen years later …

“So, you’re allergic to bees?”

I was checked out by innumerable doctors, RNs, the like, last week as the teams at Augusta Health and UVA Health tried to get me through a pulmonary embolism.

I heard over and over about this allergy to bees.

Which is something that I had literally not thought of in 15 years.

You got him. You got the Tater.

Story by Chris Graham