Beyond the beauty of Bordeaux

In between dipping in and out of a perfectly blue pool in Bordeaux, I spent the afternoon reading Cuckoo in the Nest by Michelle Magorian, a book I would later incorrectly conflate with One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, though the two are very much not the same.  

But I spent most of my days and afternoons the same way. Reading. Swimming. Walking. Eating. The latter of these could’ve been one of the most exciting parts of the trip. We were staying just a short drive away from a small French bakery that made fresh bread and pastries every morning. We would go to a small supermarché or buy local produce from the farmer’s market. We had (I was told) delicious regional cheeses. 

As someone allergic to dairy, gluten, nuts and an array of other fun things, this was all lost on me. Shockingly, one thing that the local supermarkets and bakeries did not have an abundance of was allergen friendly food. So one day when we found a dairy free, French equivalent to Nutella and Go! breadsticks and chocolate dip, I was beyond excited. 

My siblings also each had their own abundance of food intolerances, but none of them were allergic to nuts. And when I say I’m allergic to nuts, yes, I do mean full on anaphylactic shock, stop breathing, EpiPen allergic. You can probably tell where this is going. Though I just described the kryptonite as Nutella-esque, it appeared to us in the supermarket as a purely chocolate based heaven. It was not.

This particular afternoon, I bypassed the vibrant fresh fruit and joined my sister in reaching for the – unbeknownst to me – hazelnutty dairy-free chocolate dip with small gluten-free breadsticks. Just minutes later my mouth was red and swollen. My throat was tightening. 

I studied French from the age of four to eleven. All I can remember now is how to count from one to one hundred and how to say, “My sister has a yellow pencil,” and Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn can take all the credit for that. But I will also never forget the word noisette. 

The dreaded packet somehow made its way to my godfather, our resident French speaker. We would later find out that in France, because the ingredient was such a small percentage of the weight, there didn’t have to be a warning sign.

My symptoms worsened, an EpiPen was stabbed in my leg and I was ushered into a car. We drove down cobbled streets, past the local bakery, pharmacy and supermarket. We drove through fields of lavender swaying in the afternoon breeze, large cardboard cutouts of red wine bottles standing to attention at the front of every vineyard.

As we passed orchards and acres upon acres of sunflowers, green shuttered houses and honesty boxes of grapes, watermelons and tomatoes, I struggled even harder to breathe. I lay down on my mum’s lap and she gave me a second shot of adrenaline. Almost an hour later, we arrived at the small emergency care unit.

I was placed on weighing scales and comments were made about my weight and the child-size amount of adrenaline I was allowed to have. The French doctor asked me questions as I sat on a thin sheet of paper on a plastic bed, barely taking in the English that was flying around the room, let alone the French. I heard “très, très grave,” “très malade” and my godfather removed the “very” in every translation. 

The doctor criticized my mum for using the adrenaline, acting out the electric shock inside of me, shaking his arms and wobbling his head from side to side. My godfather loosely explained the French that came along with the game of Charades: “The EpiPen should only be used when you are about to die.” 

This was very much not the same advice our British doctors had given us since I first went into anaphylactic shock at the age of five, though even if it was, I’m sure my mum wouldn’t have listened. She tried to explain this to the French doctor, but unfortunately, he was having none of it. 

After a while under observation, I was somehow back at the house, by the pool. I sat, a wet towel pressed to my face to reduce the swelling, my ever protective and loving older brother sitting next to me and reminding me that “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” 

Even then I was well aware that when it comes to allergic reactions, the opposite is in fact true. The more times you ingest an allergen, the more quickly and aggressively you react the next time. But at the time, ushered into the pool to cool down as if it was a medical prescription, I simply hopped onto a pool float, forced a smile for the camera and repeated the mantra in my head until it felt true.