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| My Mom’s CRAZY! |
It started out innocuously enough; I felt a little itchy on my belly on Friday afternoon, but promptly forgot about it due to the two miniature people demanding things like warmth and sustenance. That evening Peej had his holiday party at work (returning home in time to tuck in the Norabug, obvie- what a rager), and I ran out to get some groceries-
-Making a quick, super-secret stop to pick up THE BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER, ohmigod I’ve said too much-
-And then met up with Kat for some seriously awesome Grouponed Tank sushi in Lincoln Square. Came home at a reasonable hour, kissed P.J. and Zuzu, checked on Nora, and went to sleep.
I woke up two hours later in a bit of pain. My hands seemed to be on fire, and were completely raw from the fact that I had been scratching them non-stop since I fell asleep. (Apparently. Either that, or someone awfully mean was scratching them into bloody stumps for me.) I went to the bathroom to find some hydrocortisone or something with which to prevent them from falling off. Happened to look in the mirror on the way out.
Saw, rising up past my tank top straps, ugly red welts spreading up my shoulders. Panicked.
I ran downstairs to find P.J. asleep on the couch and shouted something about how I was being eaten alive by a virus. Or something. Peej, for his part, woke up in a panic, thinking he was about to get reamed for falling asleep on the couch again. Panicked even more when he saw that I was a) not angry, but b) potentially dying.
But being the helpful guy that he is, he checked me out for other hives (who says romance doesn’t exist after kids?) and went to get the hydrocortisone that I had flung in my rush to find him. Went to rub some on my shoulder blades. And saw that there seemed to be a bit more of the rash. He lifted the back of my shirt to find that in the past fifteen seconds, hives had appeared on my back and belly. Also, there was now one on my jaw.
And my hands were still puffy from my Claws Of Death.
P.J., who becomes even cooler during times of duress (as opposed to my regression into flailing toddlerdom), started a bath for me, got out some baking soda and oatmeal, and ran to the 24/7 Walgreens. Not caring much for “directions” or “amounts,” I dumped in roughly three cups of each, and proceeded to immerse myself into a salty and dense bath o’ gruel.
I’m not gonna lie- it didn’t feel good.
At this point, hives were appearing down my arms and legs in fiery lines. I leaned out of the tub to begin Googling things on my phone; “rapidly spreading hives”, “itchy (bloody) hands”, things like that. I highly recommend a late-night Google session like this. It really calms the panic, especially since terms come up like “Ebola.” (People never post things on the internet when they’re feeling coherent and logical. It’s just like Yelp- no one ever posts things like “It was a completely middle-of-the-road experience, one that was just fine. No complaints. No excess praise, either. Just nice.” I don’t know why I expected differently from medical postings. You’re either imagining things or you may already be dead.
By the time P.J. had returned (less than seven minutes later), I had mentally revamped my will (I think my beneficiaries will be pleased with the changes). I then got out of the bath to take some Benadryl and actually gasped at my reflection. The welts on my legs had joined together to make eight-hive-wide snowflake patterns. These were now SupraHives. P.J., stoic as he was, could not completely mask his shock/horror/disgust(?) at his wife’s condition.
It seriously looked like I had been beaten by a rusty chain.
So we did what we do best: We talked it out for about an hour. Should we go to the ER? Do we call our neighbors to come stay with the girls? (You’re welcome, Angie.) Did I really feel it warranted immediate attention? Did you notice that my right arm is now completely crimson?
In the end, we [I] decided to just go to bed. After all, if I was still breathing okay (and nothing makes one think that there’s breathing trouble like continuously asking oneself if one has trouble breathing) and had taken an antihistamine, I’d most likely end up just needlessly sitting in the ER for about five hours. Also, I deeply feared getting a cortisone shot. Sure, I had just [extremely recently] been the recipient of a spinal, but cortisone? NO SANKYOU.
I went to bed after checking on the girls, feeling nothing but sorrow for Susannah’s nonexistent memories of me, and even moreso for Nora, having recently baked some so-so cookies with her slacktacular mother. There were also a few moments of absolute surety that my throat was closing up…quickly amended when I realized that I had been holding my breath. P.J. promised that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me- then promptly snored.
Woke up three hours later with nary a welt. Feeling one thousand and two percent. With no idea what caused it or how to prevent future outbreaks. (Like in “Outbreak”.)
So, apparently there’s something out there that I really should not be touching with any part of my being. But I have no idea what it is. So I’ll just continue to…not touch anything.
Cinchy.
(Happy Monday!)
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