My last full week in the lead up to my trip has not been the most well planned. It was totally out of my control in my defence but if your interested in the medical week from hell read on as it will give you a good laugh if nothing else. I can now see the funny side as I am hopefully out of the woods but this is the my last week in review.
I had my going away party last week and a great night was had by all. Lynda and I stumbled home at – not much memory of the taxi ride home or getting to bed – but that has been the usual Saturday / Sunday morning routine for the last 3 months. We woke at around and I had 3 spots on my cheek and they were itchy as hell. So I assumed that I had been bitten by a mozzie in my sleep.
Monday the itch turned into a rash. No big deal – I don’t get sick and I normally don’t get allergic reactions – so was happy to run the course of my ‘mozzie’ bites. People were asking me what I had been bitten by and was a topic that people in shops were happy to ask me about. In the meantime I had also been to the dentist twice for a barnacle clean and 3 fillings. I also had to drop my passport to the Chinese Consulate and the finalizing my trip continued.
Tuesday the rash started to swell. Still no pain at this stage, but it was starting to look a little ‘unusual’. Back to the dentist for another 2 fillings ( yes it has been a while between visits ). Even the dentist mentioned it looked like a spiders bite and I should get it seen too. I still had people offering advice and asking me what had attacked my face. A visit to work and seeing their faces drop when I walked in the door told me that I was staring to look a little ‘kooky’. There were 2 theories we had for the bite. One was that getting home on Sunday morning I had walked into a spiders web and was attacked. The other which is totally not to my liking is that a spider sat on my face and had a nibble while I was in my drunk induced sleep. Need less to say I was sticking to part one of the theory.
Wednesday was the first official day I looked like elephant woman. My face felt like it was the size of a balloon and it was quite obvious that I needed to see a doctor. I got an appointment in the afternoon and at this point we were still dealing with a bite, which we had deduced was a spider. The doctor was quite nice and gave me some drugs that I was expecting miracles from and thought that I would be back to normal as soon as I started to take them. Oh how I wish that was true.
Thursday morning when I opened my eyes I just knew that things were no better. I had to head into the city to pick up my passport and do a few other things and not one person asked me about the ‘bite’ on my face, as It had gone past the point of people asking what had happened as you could see in their faces that they did not know if it was heriditaty, a disease or an abusive husband. Back to work for lunch and the 4 hours I was there it just degenerated so much I headed upstairs to another doctor. It was getting to sheer desperation. I needed this thing to start clearing up as the first portion of my trip was starting to look shakey. This doctor was really nice and this was the first time that shingles was mentioned. Shingles is a viral disease produced by the chicken pox virus. It is characterised by pain and a blistering rash that occurs along the nerves that have housed the dormant chicken pox virus since its last effects on an individual ( I was 10 when I had chicken pox ) When an individual's immune system can no longer fight the chicken pox virus, they develop shingles. As we didn’t know which one I actually had, we decided to continue treating me for a spider bite and now also shingles.
Friday for me was the most confronting. I woke and my face looked like something from a horror movie. This is no exageration. Today was quite upsetting with the realisation that I would probably have to cancel my Trans Mongolian portion of my trip, as my face had not only NOT improved was getting worse as the days wore on. I had Zoe’s school cross country that I promised I would go to, but my face would have just scared all the kiddies the way it was. Luckily when I was at the chemist I bought an eye patch, so I decided to don this and head down to the oval to watch my oldest god-daughter run her little heart out – and it was definetly worth looking like Blackbeard for the morning. I made my third appointment at the doctors for the third day in a row. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing else I could be doing over the week-end to help in my recovery. This male doctor was not only hot but also really nice and also said he thinks it is shingles. With all the medication I was on there was really not much more they could do for me. If shingles is not diagnosed within the first 72 hours then you have to run the whole course of the infection – which is where I found myself.
Saturday and Sunday I found the mornings were the worst times with the swelling, but the drugs started to kick in and by mid morning – lunch time I was starting to resemble the old Bernie once again. This was a massive releif for me and to know I had turned the corner and was coming through the otherside was something I won’t forget. I am glad I persisted with the doctors and paid the money for the drugs and the visits ( all $400 worth ) to make sure I was in the best condition possible for the start of my trip.
The upside – as there is always one is that I had an alcohol free week for the first time since before christmas. So we are talking quite a few weeks in total and it made a nice change to wake up on a Sunday morning refreshed and not hung over and feeling like I had swallowed a hairball and drunk 50 litres of vodka.
So that was my medical emergency the leading up to my last week. I am hoping that I have got all my ailments done and dusted BEFORE I go and will now have a medical free trip!
Shingles or Spider Bite?
We will never know!!!!!
We will never know!!!!!
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