June 24, 2008
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Scotland & Shingles
I’m gonna answer the Xanga Featured Question today: Where were you are year ago today?
A year ago today, I was in Scotland. The nationwide design festival I worked for had just wrapped up seven days before. Shaun had just won a young authors festival reading in Edinburgh. My stepdad Tony was in town with his lady friend Cheryl. And I had shingles.
Here is a funny snippet from a blog entry I wrote on the last Tuesday of June 2007:
Saturday, I noticed a series of red bumps on my upper left thigh and showed them
to Shaun with fascinated disgust; I thought I must have rolled over a
spider in the night and in a struggle to live, Mr. Spider attacked my
leg with bites. I hoped to soon notice super-powers emerging; the
agility of an insect and the ability to shoot web out of my wrists. But
then Sunday rolled around and instead of feeling like Spider Woman, I
felt like I had a hang over, which is never a fun feeling but it
especially sucks when you’ve not even had anything to drink the night
before. The bites were swelling and turning purple-ish; the left side
of my abdomen waned puffy, swollen and tender. “Must be some sort of
allergic reaction to Scottish spiders combined with some gnarly
menstrual cramps,” I thought. I slathered bug bite cream on my leg,
took an ibuprofen, and spent much of the day napping. It hurt to walk.Monday
rolled around and the bumps seemed scabbier. That’s a good sign, right?
I limped to work. Since my job is so sedentary lately, the day was
fine. Except the bits where I had to walk; then it felt like someone
was stabbing me in the tender, node-laden place where the front of my
left leg joins my body. Ouchie. I fell to a fitful sleep at 7.30pm.Today
I woke up and called my doctor. My leg/abdomen hurt like a mutha, with
the added fun of the chills, sweats, a migraine, and real live
menstrual cramps. I described my problem to the GP over the phone and
was whisked to an emergency appointment; not an easy thing to do when
using National Healthcare.The doctor looked at my leg and said, “Those aren’t bites. Those are shingles.”
I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!
Comments (3)
lol, I remember when you wrote about that. yikes. I don’t remember, but what was the cause of the shingles?
how are things going? you never got back to me about tennis. we should play.
I still remember the girlfriend. Ha!
Sheesh Truly! It really has been an amazing year for you. And if someone out of the loop and just back in Chicago were to run across you they might think that you never left. But boy howdy did you.
So glad the shingles have not made a reappearance. That sounded so painful!
It is interesting how our blogs provide records for us, easily
accessible journals. Even if they aren’t red-letter days, they are so
easy to reference.