Week 6 - Autobiographical Slice

I remember the first time I realized that there was something different about me.  I was five years old and had just eaten lunch 30 minutes prior to the vicious migraine that came on out of nowhere.  Hell, at that age I didn’t even know what a migraine was, let alone what was causing it to happen to me.  I don’t even remember what I ate but I do remember one thing; it was the first time that I would have an allergic reaction to Monosodium Glutamate.  My mother and I shared a lot of common things, though the most common things we shared were allergies.

My mother was the sixth and last child in her family to be born.  Born May 23, 1957, she had a long road in front of her.  Right off the bat she was afflicted with health issues, including a defective heart, something she would not discover until much later in life.  Spending most of her early childhood in and out of hospitals and incubators, it’s a miracle she’s here today and that I am as well. As she grew up and entered into adulthood, she slowly began to realize that something was amiss regarding her body and sure enough, she discovered that she was allergic to not only MSG but every pain killer and analgesic on the market, among various other things.  It wasn’t until I was born that she realized it could be passed on.

Throughout the majority of my childhood and adolescent years, I had to refrain from eating everything that I found appealing; my god, what I wouldn’t have done to eat Doritos at lunchtime like all of the rest of the kids, and the smell of ramen noodles made me salivate instantly, even though I had no idea what they tasted like.  If I even as so much as sampled the slightest bit of food with MSG in it, I would be in for a hellacious night.  Tylenol wouldn’t even touch the migraines that MSG would cause.  I’d have to sit and writhe in pain, hoping for relief, or anything to make it stop. 

The migraines were insane.  Picture this:  Take the worst migraine you’ve ever had, and magnify it by ten-fold, and that’s what it felt like when I was poisoned with food tainted with the dreaded food additive.  Nothing could quell the insidious ache it would cause, not even mass amounts of water.  Within an hour after ingesting it, I would be puking and crying because the pain would escalate to outrageous levels.  It didn’t take me long to realize that despite how good any food smelled or seemed, it wasn’t worth being thrown back into that kind of heinous torture.  And although I avoided food with it in it at all costs, there was always those times MSG would go undetected and I would get it by accident.  It’s funny, because there are many names for MSG one wouldn’t even think about:  Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Soy Protein Isolate,  Autolyzed Plant Protein, Sodium Caseinate, and the list goes on.  No wonder as a child it would get slipped into my food, thanks to the FDA. 

It wasn’t until my mother suffered a heart attack at age 36 from the chemical that I really considered keeping my diet in check, I was only 6 and I knew I never wanted to live that reality.  My mother has mitral valve prolapse, and MSG directly triggered her valve to stay open, allowing bad blood to flow backwards into the heart.  Given how many allergies we share, and that both of my parents have bad hearts, I am not excited to see my mid 30’s.  I never thought that I’d be able to enjoy take out or fast food like other kids.  But that all changed when I turned 13.

I was sitting in the cafeteria one day in Leonard Middle School and again, the ever alluring Doritos were being eaten by just about every one of my friends.  I sat and stared longingly as I always had at their snack size bags, hoping for just a little taste but knowing what was to come.  Eventually, I couldn’t control myself any further, and I asked for a chip; just one whole one.  My friends looked at me puzzled, for they knew what happened when I ate the stuff, but I insisted and one of them obliged.  It was a bag of Cooler Ranch, and the one chip I had was delectable.  I know most people don’t think “delectable” when it comes to chips, but being that I was restrained from having basic junk food like that, it was amazing.  The bell rang to go back to class and I immediately began regretting what I had done.  We still had another two and a half hours of school left, and it would only be a matter of 30-45 minutes before I would be in my own personal hell. 

I sat through Social studies, staring at the clock and expecting the worst to come.  Then I sat through Pre-Algebra, also waiting for the inevitable.  It wasn’t until the bell rang to go home that I realized I wasn’t getting sick at all, not even a minor headache.  I left school and jumped in my mom’s car, but decided not to mention my little test of my allergies.  We drove home and as I walked in the front door I still felt nothing.  It was as if I had been absolved of my hereditary issues, but how?  I couldn’t be sure, but slowly after that day I began trying lots of things with MSG, in small amounts at first.  Within two years, I was able to eat anything with MSG, no matter how much of the food additive that was present. 

My mother to this day cannot eat Monosodium Glutamate, and she’s never lost any of her other allergies either.  What frightens me is that I know eventually, this demon is going to come back to haunt me.  It’s only a matter of time before my body switches back over to being highly sensitive to the additive.  But in the meantime, I am going to stuff in as much Chinese, Doritos, and everything else under the sun with MSG in it so when that time comes, I don’t feel like I’m missing out so bad.  It’s probably the worst thing I can literally do, but we only get one life and I love food, so even though its cliché, I’d rather have loved and lost then never loved at all.