[ WP ] A child develops a severe allergy to the color green .

When Yassef first got sick, it was a mystery like none other that his doctors had ever seen. It began on the day his family took him on his first visit to Central Park. 
 
 He was brimming over with excitement when they first arrived. He chattered and enthused about the sights and sounds. He made new friends and laughed. But as the day went on, his mother noticed a certain uncharacteristic lethargy. She asked him what was wrong, but he shrugged and just said `` nothing.'' She thought perhaps his visit had tired him, but they had been there only an hour. 
 
 Moved by some motherly instinct, she felt his forehead and said she thought he had a fever. Her husband told her not to be paranoid. It was a warm day. The boy had been playing hard. How could she tell if he had a fever just by feeling his forehead under circumstances such as this? She thought about this, and nodded quietly. Her instincts were troubled, but her mind could see no cause, and she tried to tell herself she was jumping at shadows. 
 
 But less than a half hour later, Yassef was distinctly wheezing. `` Asthma,'' his father pronounced, and they packed the boy up and hurried him home where his mother could set about scheduling an appointment with the pediatrician. He grew better almost as soon as they left the park, and his parents nodded sagely to themselves, feeling certain that they had sorted the matter out. 
 
 He was fine during the trip home, throughout dinner, and indeed for most of the rest of the evening. But when bedtime came around, he began sobbing, and insisted that his pajamas hurt. At first, his parents suspected some childish attempt to evade bedtime, but when his mother checked, she found his skin blistered and red. In a panic, she got him out of the pajamas and ever so gently bathed him in cool soothing water. It was amazing how quickly and completely this helped. The redness faded, and the blisters shrunk within minutes. It was *unnatural. * 
 
 She could not imagine what the issue was, but she insisted on running the pajamas through the laundry twice. They were brand new ( he had gotten them today for his birthday ), so it was almost impossible to believe there was anything wrong with them. Just the same, within minutes of putting them on, the boy was crying once more. So the ritual was repeated, except this time the offending green pajamas were put away on a high shelf, and the boy was returned to his old blue ones. 
 
 They had n't yet had time to see the pediatrician when Yassef had a violent reaction to something in his dinner. There was never any question of the seriousness even though he had been complaining about eating his vegetables just before the attack. He was in such a state that his parents had to rush him to the hospital. His mother was nearly inconsolable with terror and guilt until the doctors mentioned the possibility of food allergies. 
 
 They assured her allegies could manifest suddenly, and that the important thing was only that they determine what it was that caused the reaction so the condition could be managed. But Yassef did not come home that night. Or the next. Or any time that week. His condition became more baffling as the doctors observed. 
 
 Virtually every green vegetable caused reactions. But the thing that was so bizarre that at first no one took it seriously was that so did almost every other green thing. The green scrubs worn by some of the doctors and nurses seemed to hurt his eyes to look at them. When they took him to the patient lounge to play, certain toys made his hands hurt like he had been burned. The only thing they all had in common was their color: green. And when he sat for a few minutes in a green armchair in the corner of the lounge, he reported that he felt achy all over. 
 
 Before he could come home, Yassef's father repainted every surface that had any trace of green. A special diet had to be written up. From that day forward, the family had to limit themselves to vegetables that were white or yellow. The park was off limits, as was the back yard. And hardest of all the boy had to wear special glasses to protect his eyes from any accidental green. 
 
 The doctors said even brief exposures would cause slow but cumulative deterioration in his eyesight. With a little difficulty, they taught him how important it was to put them on before he could leave the safe grays and blues of his bedroom in the morning. They looked like goggles, and were made with special filtering lenses that turned all the greens in his world to black, ensuring none of the eye damaging wavelength made it through. His parents dreaded the day he had to face the other children at school, for they knew how cruel children could be mocking those who look different, but it was for his own good. 
 
 His parents insisted they wanted little Yassef to have the most normal life possible. His doctors said there was no reason he could not have a rich and full life in spite of his condition. After all, they pointed out: some people are entirely color blind, and they get by just fine. Yassef had only lost one color from his world. It really could have been so much worse, his mother told all her friends. 
 
 Then one day, as she was having him try on a new purple vest, Yassef began sneezing uncontrollably. Without a word, she pulled the vest back off him and threw it in the trash can. Then she sat down, hugged her boy to her, and began to cry. 
 

