Ah Nuts!

I’ve given the garden tour at the museum how many times when someone has opened a kukui nut for the guest to try. Not a big piece but just a tiny sample with the warning that it causes diarrhea. (that kept them in check) So I never thought that I could react to the nut itself.

This is a fake Kukui nut lei. But I think they are still pretty. The museum would like us to make real Kukui nut leis as part of our uniforms. But I’ve not been able to make it in on Saturdays to do this so I brought some raw nuts home to work on.

I was watching “Big Bang Theory” Laughing in bed surrounded by my four dogs happily cleaning out the Kukui. I was on the third one when I finely thought that the numbness around my mouth was getting too uncomfortable. Though it was not as uncomfortable as the fact that my throat was closing up. I stopped cleaning and went to the computer to find anything on reactions to it. All’s it said was that the meat could be poisonous if eaten raw. Well I knew enough not to be eating the meat. I’m thinking it was the fact that as I chipped away at the meat, inside, I would blow through one hole to make it come out the other end.

It must have been the nut itself that was making me react. So as I’m sitting at the computer trying to find a natural treatment my daughter comes home and finds out what I’m doing. It was around 7:30 PM and she had been in town with my grandson all afternoon and she was tired and cranky.

“Mom, do you think you need to go to the emergency?” With my abhorrence for doctors I said through the very tiny hole in the back of my throat, I don’t think so let me just see what I can find here.

Meantime my son-in-law is asking me to stick my tongue out, then to smile. I said, are you checking to see if I’m having a stroke? With that he said I guess you’re not. Then Nico got worried and chimed in with a scared look can something happen to grandma? So all this is going on when my daughter comes down and tells me to get off the computer and get dressed. She was taking me to the emergency. So I did and off we went with the tiny, little hole in my throat getting smaller. ( I thought, thank goodness I had showered and brushed my teeth.)

We drove to Pali Momi. My daughter was tired and cranky because she knew this was going to be an all night thing. I kept worrying about the dogs and telling her to call Alika to make sure they didn’t find the Kukui nut meat. Chris kept saying don’t worry about the dogs worry about yourself! I tried to keep up a cheerful conversation because I knew she was tired but It didn’t help.

Of course when we got there the place was busy. Chris dropped me at the front door and I went in while she went in search of parking. I gave the two women attendance my reason for being there. (All the time trying not to sound too pitiful yet so embarrassed each time I said I was blowing on the Kukui Nut. I had to tell the story about 7 times.) By now even my teeth were hurting. As I looked around I thought this is going to take for ever. But before I knew it I went from person A to person B and then to triage, which must have really made the guy sitting across from me angry as he was complaining about how long he had been there.

I felt I was one with my dogs at last wearing these tags

So now I’ve messed up my daughters night, and was helped immediately while the poor guy across from me hunkered down. I manage to upset people wherever I go. Anyway they put me in a room, hooked me up to an IV and before I knew it I was 3 sheets to the wind.

But I must say, before I sailed off I managed to notice that the emergency room ceiling was made of this beautiful Koa. Not only that, there were carved squares in the ceiling, each, depicting a different Pacific culture canoeing through the ocean. It was beautiful! I wanted to talk about it to Chris but she gets so upset with me and I think sometimes bored listening to me talk about Hawaii. But I thought I would give it a try. So I carefully maneuvered my arms and IV and turned to her. It was then I realized that my eyes were shut and I couldn’t see her. When I opened them I got a shock. She was sitting there looking at me and I was looking up at the stark white ceiling. Wow, what ever they gave me was great. I just turned on my back and said “I only have three more nuts to clean.” Actually it was only two but at that point I couldn’t count anymore.

After my daughter read me the riot act about touching the nuts again I went off to never, never land. We got home around 10:30 I immediately went to bed and the last thing Chris said to me was, “You make sure to pick up your medicine and take it!”

Waking up and feeling great I told my daughter I had no more symptoms. She  reiterated once again, before she sailed off to work, about the medicine. Well I picked it up after I went out to breakfast, looked at magazines, and yarn. I knew I was going to be tired after I took it so I managed to do what needed to be done. Don’t tell Chris, I cleaned the last two Nuts!

Raw Kukui nut and the tool I was using to hollow it out.