I'm a Roof!
Entry posted by malign
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So, another overdue update.
My actual last day at work was the 15th; I took various forms of leave for the week of the 22nd.
And I had a hard time being productive. Partly the sudden change of being off work, and partly having to cope with the changes coming up. Unfortunately, instead of "coping" very much, I opted to spend my time reading. I couldn't even do anything productive, because reading is the only thing that occupies enough of my brain to push the rest out.
What I didn't realize is that the stress was still there, underneath. So, in typical body fashion, my body showed me, instead. Early in the week, I noticed a small patch of what seemed like eczema along the part line of my hair, but thought little of it because I often get eczema there. Then it spread to my forehead. Then it got to my eye, having stayed on the left side of my head throughout.
I resisted going to a doctor. The ex was big on doctors. She'd go to the emergency room repeatedly for anxiety attacks, believed she had any number of difficult to diagnose but undeniably painful afflictions, always of the type where "we know you have pain but can't find any reason for it." Later in the marriage, she would insist that I also get treated, because in her mind, I must have been the source and therefore functioning as a carrier.
Anyway, I put it off too late on Friday to find someone to look at it, but then Friday night was pretty rough, with pain and the uncertainty of what was causing it. So I finally went to an urgent-care place on Saturday, which sent me along to the hospital emergency room, where they diagnosed shingles. So if my head becomes a roof, I'll be ready, though now I think I'd prefer thatch ...
They recommended a specialist, who actually saw me in his office Saturday evening. He didn't think there was significant involvement with the eye surface (which can be serious), so I'm on anti-viral meds and an anti-microbial ointment for the eye to keep it from getting a secondary infection. I'll supposedly stop being infectious when the sores scab over, which I'm hoping will be by Thanksgiving.
Apparently, shingles outbreaks can be triggered by stress, but what they don't tell you is that they're also a cause of stress. For one thing, it looks like I've been cursed by a right-handed wizard (because only the left side got hit.) I've got scabby patches all over my (rather expansive) forehead, my eye is puffy and red and partly closed, and it feels like my skin is trying to crawl away.
On the bright side (because that seemed to mostly be whine-focused), I know what it is, I'm being treated appropriately for it, and hopefully it'll be at least better before the move itself.
In the long run, maybe it will teach me something about the dangers of holding things inside and to stop hiding from the signals my body (and my feelings) are sending me.
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