Shingles
I have always associated Shingles as an old person’s disease. I guess I an officially old because I have them.
It started out about a week and half ago. I had these incredibly itchy sores on my right neck. I had shaved my head the night before so i thought I just cut my neck or had an ingrown hair. But the pain never went away and I just tried some topical ointments. Even though maybe some parasite was living inside my neck trying to eat my brain cell. It got worse… burning or like needles in my neck.
Friday night we were babysitting our neighbors kids. They (the parents not the kids) happen to be nurses so I had Jennifer look at my neck. She called back and said she thought it was Shingles and asked if I’d come down and let John look at. John is the practicing nurse.
Shingles. I really didn’t know what they were so John fills me in. It’s like something out of a science fiction novel. It’s the same virus as Chicken Pox. In fact that sucker never leaves the body but lies dormant in the nervous system waiting to come out. So its been in my body for 45 years since I had Chicken Pox as a baby!!! Is that freaky or what? Usually it comes out because of stress or when your immune system is down. BINGO! I had the flu right before the outbreak. (Not sure if it was H1N1 but might have been.)
So John prescribed me some medicine to help prevent it from spreading. This is also science fiction in that it hooks up with other cells and gives them the DNA to spread…. or something like that. I really didn’t catch it all because when John was describing, I was freaking out because it was a little parasite eating my nervous system.
So here I am in major pain. (John also prescribed me some heavy pain killers.) Sometimes I just want to scream and have Robin cut my head off at the neck.
