So if you’ve read my saga of a full personal bio you know this, if not SPOILER ALERT, but Mast Cell Activation Syndrome/Mastocytosis are among my principal diagnosis and play a fairly important role in keeping me nice and ill. A huge part of managing this disease is knowing and avoiding your triggers, which makes sense as your mast cells are already doing crazy ass shit on their own, then you throw other histamines in there and it’s a clusterfuck. Very technical language I know, I’m basically a doctor.

The fun part is that virtually anything can be a trigger, environmental changes, food, stress, you name it, we react to it. One might think however that once a trigger was discovered, say dairy for example, you could be like adios queso! Then todo bien, but one would be wrong. The thing that makes MCAS such a sneaky bitch is you may react to something you’ve historically never reacted to before, and vice versa. If I had a dollar for all the shit I’ve had to throw away because it spontaneously started to make me itchy after days or even months of being hunky dory…I could probably quit my second job.

Alas, this is the essence of Russian Roulette: Mast Cell Edition. Never know if that barrel is empty or filled with hives, tachycardia, and oh so much more. It does however lend hope to the thought one day I may be able to eat Flamin Hot Cheetos again without getting hives all over my body. Silver linings ya know?

Also quick footnote on #triggered, in the photo it is quite literal in a sense not referring to its definition in a mental health capacity, if you use the term in jest give this a read. Give respect, get respect.