Poison Panic Attack

So, for the second time this month I almost had another panic attack. It all began with a fun little trip to the downtown market. The market is full of fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, eggs, cheeses and fresh comida if you're interested. My friend April and I went to check it out together this morning. Just as she asked what I was going to keep my eye of for, I spotted fresh sweet potatoes. I bought 9 lbs of them (all for around $2.50). Then, April spotted a fruit that her roommates call the "garbage fruit" (because it smells awful as it rots and because none of them like it). She said that it's actually a cashew fruit and tastes delicious. So, we bargained with the vendor (who tried to sell us some obviously decomposing ones, which I exchanged) and brought them home to taste. April sifted through the bunch, and found three that looked worthy of eating. After biting into the first pick, she was definitely dissatisfied, which led us to throw all of them away. But before casting off the last one, I decided it might be interesting to taste the fruit of a raw cashew. And this is where the story really begins...

I took a knife and worked my way into the juicy shell. It was difficult to get the seed out, and so we just took a little bit of what we could, and tried it out. Seconds later, both her tongue and mine began to feel really weird. Not the good "yummy" weird or even the "yikes, that's sour" weird. Nope. It felt like "could this be poisonous?" weird. Quickly, I asked her boyfriend to check online if cashew nuts in the raw were poisonous. Within seconds, we had our answer: YES! In fact, raw cashews (that is, straight out of the casing) are encased in the same oil that is on poison ivy leaves. So, April and I had just swallowed a bit of  poison ivy.

My heart was racing...my stomach immediately felt loose...I felt the panic rising, the bile just back in my throat. I rushed to the bathroom; April sweetly offered her toothbrush with Trader Joe's special non-fluoride toothpaste, and I brushed for like 5 minutes. I washed my cashew-oily fingers, cut my fingernails, then proceeded to see if I needed to take any medication. The panic was not slowing down as we read a couple of stories of "raw cashew eaters" online who ended up with poison ivy all over their face and mouth, and another with permanent red marks around her mouth.

Once my stomach left me, and Lauren (the EMT roommate), who called a Honduran friend for answers, told me I would be absolutely fine, I kind of settled down. I came home a little later...brushed my teeth again, rinsed with Listerine, prayed for mercy, called my mom for further assurance, and sat down to eat some lunch (trying to not think about the strange feeling still on the tip of my tongue). Was this a panic attack? Well, maybe. But I have a healthy fear of poison ivy--after all, I have not forgotten the lesson I learned in high school after having wiped my own butt with the assassin-like leaf.