As we all know, my body hates itself. Expose it to anything outside of a white room or bubble, and it reacts by attacking itself. Usually that just means a plague of mucus drips out of every hole in my head (even my ears get involved in the party!). However, there have been those heinous times when my skin got in on the action.
Age 15
A highly stressful time in my life. I would never repeat that year EVER. My life at home was terrible in so many ways. My closest friends were becoming estranged and alien to me. I was making new friends (who I am still friends with to this day, thankfully). I was having great sneaky sex, and was beyond bored in school. I was trying out different bits of myself, and trying to decide which part of me I liked best. And the anger. I had so much anger in me. I did stupid things like punch lockers and walls, burned my thighs with objects heated by purloined lighters, and cut my wrists and calves with dirty broken glass that I found on the ground. I really could have used some professional therapy at that time.
If life wasn't tumultuous enough, the skin on my palms literally started shredding, peeling off in thin long layers. I was shedding in a very unsightly manner. Tatters of thin skin hung off my hands, and little holes were forming where new areas of skin was going to peel. It lasted for months. It was beyond embarrassing, but somewhat easy to hide most days, until I found myself in a situation where I had to shake someone's hand. Ugh. It would be one thing if they were just dry and sandpapery, but actually hanging off of me in tattered shreds, not cool. The lowest moment came when my English cousins came to visit us for the first (and only) time. We met them right when they got off the plane (ah, the days of actually being able to be a visitor to the airport and not sheeple). I was shy and painfully aware of my hands, and I had no idea what the fuck they were saying. My stock is Liverpudlian; the accent is a muddled English with Scottish undertones. They were also amazingly soft-spoken. I had never heard a person talk so quietly in such an obviously loud nonprivate place.
Eventually my parents took me to the doctor, pronounced I was having an obvious allergic reaction to something. My parents refused to believe him since nothing new had been introduced in to my environment. No change in soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, etc. My parents were definitely creatures of habit and would never think of buying something new. They were also parsimonious to a fault, so the items that touched our skin consisted of some serious cheap ingredients. The most abhorrent to me was our soap: Zest. I shiver at the thought and smell of it. Since my parents refused to buy any other soap, I was told to buy my own. I got Dove and slowly my hands started to clear. Fact 1 was learned: allergies to certain things can come from nowhere, even if you have used them for years.
Age 18 & 19
Not surprisingly, things weren't completely awesome my freshman year in college. In many ways they were. I was finally away from my parents (for good!). I had all of Boston to learn and conquer (I didn't get on the T for a full year because I was really that damn timid, despite my purple hair and tattoos). I had boys and girls after me, and I only had eyes for one, which I landed quickly and lost even more quickly. (Hey, hey Dirty Boy!) It's so lame, but like so many at that age, that bad relationship consumed me in every possible way. It dragged on for years, actually. But that first year was the roughest, and I developed hives due to the stress. School was easy, no problem. I wrote stories that impressed my teachers; I read any book my lit professors through at me and enjoy writing essays. Yet, a fucking boy brought me to the very edge of me. The hives almost pushed me all the way over. The insane itching. I think of those nights when I couldn't sleep due to the agony of my skin. I looked like someone had lashed me with a long whip all over my ribs, the back of my legs, across my abdomen. I got up every night around 3am to just stand in the hottest shower my Boston dorm room could provide. It was such a lonely time. I didn't want to tell anyone. I was embarrassed at how my own body could betray me like that. I had those motherfuckers for six months--spring semester through the summer. Sometimes hives just have to run their course. If I was allergic to anything at that time, I never found out what it was. I later learned that hives can come about due to stress, and it often takes the body 3-6 months to work them out of your system.
Age 34
Yes! The here and now. Right this very minute I am scratching the underside of my right forearm and attempting to do the same for the top of my left forearm. My left knee also itches, but I am successfully ignoring it. Give me ten minutes, and I'll have different itchy spots to report. It's a roving rash. On Monday, during the good times, I had an itch on my left cheek right under my eye and above my beauty mole. That mole often is inflamed (okay, fine I promise to find a dermatologist this year), so at the time I didn't really recognize that this was a separate itch not related to the mole. When I got home, I noticed a very distinct red welt on my face. Definitely a bit of some type. What bit me, I'll probably never know. I distinctly remember telling Guamaniac that I was hella itchy, and then in bed that night, I felt like ants were crawling all over me. I was so uncomfortable and fidgety. I finally had The Boy bring me half a Benadryl. Half was still way too much for me to wake up on time for work.
Yesterday it was worse. In a meeting I sat there foolishly grabbing various parts of myself and rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. My arms and shins are the worse. I have no idea why it is mainly my extremities, but I also feel like there's something in me that I want to scratch but have no idea how to get to it. At least my boss got to see the rash on my arms as I was maniacally pulling up my sleeves and going to town on my wrists. I went home and took a Benadryl at 6pm, and spent my night doing my best to not nod off while hanging out with The Boy (we get about 1-2 nights a week to hang out, so I can't be sick during these days). Even taking it that early, I still got up way too late.
I'll save my feelings of guilt of all this tardiness to work for another time. However, that stress probably does make the rash stay around longer. My boss suggested I go see my doctor for steroids. I demurred and felt I should wait to see how I feel tomorrow. Since she seemed concerned and I was full of guilt, I called. Seems having a rash that seems related to an unknown insect bite does not warrant the urgency one would think (especially in a town full of brown recluse spiders). Thanks doctor's office. They set me up with some doctor I have never seen before tomorrow at 2pm. This is a less than ideal situation because the doctor is a he and I am meeting him for the first time over an all-body rash. I just took some Zyrtec (makes me sleepy but nothing like Benadryl), and have my fingers crossed I'll be better tomorrow and won't have to go.
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While despairing on FB today, my Martial Arts guru posted something about how I needed a fluke worm. I thought he was just trying to make my misery in to a joke, or suggest something that would get my mind off my current set of problems. Ends up, he's on to something. You can read up on it for yourself here and here. Sadly this amazing old-school medicine is not legal in the U.S. Therefore, please donate to the Send Grumples to the UK fund. I am at the point where I am willing to have a parasite hanging out in my liver or large intestine. Sure, it may cause some serious vitamin deficiency, but the luxury of being free of mucus and itchy skin sounds like it is totally worth it.
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