Itchy and Scratchy

Last Tuesday, I came home from work and felt so exhausted that I went to bed at 7pm. I felt like I was coming down with the flu, so I stayed home on Wednesday and figured my immune system was compromised by the never-ending sinus infection that continued to plague me.

Wednesday morning, I made an appointment to go see the doctor in the afternoon. All day, I felt nauseous, tired and had no appetite. When I went into the doctor, she looked me over and asked me all the typical questions. Meanwhile, I was light-headed from not eating enough and fainted as she was feeling around on my face and sinuses. She wanted me to go get x-rays to see if my sinuses were still blocked up, so she had a nurse escort me to the x-ray area in case I passed out again.

As I was getting the x-rays, I fainted a couple more times and finally got the x-rays sorted out. Then it was back to the doctor's area. Since I was fainting so much, they had the phlebotomist come to me to draw some blood to be tested. Good times.

After three hours at the doctor's office, they figured out that I was having an extreme allergic reaction to the sulpha meds that they had given me for the sinus infection. Goody. So, I went home with new drugs and went to bed.

Thursday morning, I woke up early and was feeling pretty good. I rolled over to scratch my leg and thought of how well I could breathe. I noticed my other leg was itchy and thought, "Hmm, I better get up and shower and then put on a lot of lotion." Distracted at how clear my sinuses felt, I absentmindedly raked my finger nails over my back to get a good scratch. Huh. My skin sure is dry, I thought. Must be all this cold weather. Then I got up, snapped on the light and looked in the mirror.

Aaaaahgh! I could see my legs were covered in red welts! I lifted up my t-shirt and my chest, back and arms were also covered! (Look away now if you get grossed out easily!)

My face was also affected, though not with welts, but it was beet red and looked badly sunburned. Totally freaking out, I called the consulting nurse, who said it was part of the allergic reaction. She asked me a bunch of other questions, one of which was whether I had a feeling of impending doom. What? Well, I certainly didn't feel like skipping around the yard singing Zippety Doo Da, I can tell you that much. She then suggested that I take some Benedryl, take a bath in baking soda and warm water and call back if I felt like I couldn't breathe or if my tongue or throat started to swell up. Great.

Next, I called my Mom and started bawling. She got me a little calmed down. Then I woke Aaron up and bawled to him. Aaron said that it would be ok and that I didn't look like a monster. I took some deep breaths and decided to hunker down for the day because clearly, I wasn't going to work.

As the day wore on, it seemed that the rash was getting worse, so after a couple more panicked calls to my doctor, I finally got a prescription for a steroid called prednisone. It seemed to calm the rash a bit, but it's been taking a long time to completely go away.

Today, the rash is fainter and doesn't itch as much. I actually made it out of the house with Aaron to go to breakfast this morning and you can't see the welts on my neck anymore and my face is back to its regular pale hue. Hallelujah! I am so relieved to be getting back to normal. It's so refreshing not to feel like a leper.