Nickle & Dimed
Grump.
Tomorrow is chemo #11. First a consult with Dr. Schnur, and then the usual. But I'm actually looking forward to chemo. It could help things immensely about now.
Wednesday or so I got hives on my face. Thursday night, Smith, the Golden Retreiver found a dead raccoon in the culvert behind our house. Friday morning, I bathed the dog and then when out to the culvert. I planned to shovel the dead raccoon into a garbage bag and throw it out, but dead raccoon was decaying and wet. So, as Bob had suggested, I buried it in situ. And then, to keep the dogs from digging it our and rolling in eau de raccoon mort, I built a little cairn of heavy rocks.
My hives continued to get worse.
By this morning I suspected that the hives were not, in fact, hives, but poison ivy, probably from the dog sneaking down into the culvert to investigate the dead raccoon. (She has a terrible conscience, so she has been lurking around the culvert for a couple of days, I suspect making deeper and deeper forays down the culvert slope, but fully aware she was Out of The Yard and would be Bad Dogged if caught. But the weeds start pretty far before the culvert. And it has been very warm the last couple of weeks and things a leafing and budding.) So I have a pretty horendous case of poison ivy covering half my face.
And today it snowed five inches.
So I am fat, bald, swollen and housebound.
The good news? If it is poison ivy, the huge quantities of steroids I get will immediately stop the rash in its tracks. And the hormone replacement is working. So I actually feel pretty good, if itchy. And Bob went out to get dinner and has been thoughtful and huggy.
Tomorrow is chemo #11. First a consult with Dr. Schnur, and then the usual. But I'm actually looking forward to chemo. It could help things immensely about now.
Wednesday or so I got hives on my face. Thursday night, Smith, the Golden Retreiver found a dead raccoon in the culvert behind our house. Friday morning, I bathed the dog and then when out to the culvert. I planned to shovel the dead raccoon into a garbage bag and throw it out, but dead raccoon was decaying and wet. So, as Bob had suggested, I buried it in situ. And then, to keep the dogs from digging it our and rolling in eau de raccoon mort, I built a little cairn of heavy rocks.
My hives continued to get worse.
By this morning I suspected that the hives were not, in fact, hives, but poison ivy, probably from the dog sneaking down into the culvert to investigate the dead raccoon. (She has a terrible conscience, so she has been lurking around the culvert for a couple of days, I suspect making deeper and deeper forays down the culvert slope, but fully aware she was Out of The Yard and would be Bad Dogged if caught. But the weeds start pretty far before the culvert. And it has been very warm the last couple of weeks and things a leafing and budding.) So I have a pretty horendous case of poison ivy covering half my face.
And today it snowed five inches.
So I am fat, bald, swollen and housebound.
The good news? If it is poison ivy, the huge quantities of steroids I get will immediately stop the rash in its tracks. And the hormone replacement is working. So I actually feel pretty good, if itchy. And Bob went out to get dinner and has been thoughtful and huggy.
posted by Maureen McHugh at 9:08 PM
5 Comments:
Mary T. here.
Poison ivy is really horrible.
I wish I know of a remedy, but don't be brave, mention it to your doctor if it doesn't clear up fast.
I don't think it means you're in The Colour out of Space or the heroine in a 2000's novel about transcendence. I think you've been attacked by a weed.
Sincere sympathy!
Hives are the worst. I never had them until I developed an adult onset allergy to various liquors. Gin and rum particularly. Which is such a shame, as I do love gin. Once upon a time I would have said, since I do love my gin. But it is no longer mine to love, lest I put up with horrid hives within an hour or two after drinking it. Just not worth it.
My sympathies are with you, hives or poison ivy, either one.
"I am fat, bald, swollen and housebound -- but not cancerous!"
"Fat, bald, swollen and housebound"--not pleasant, but every point is temporary. Courage.
Oatmeal colloidal might help -- hard to know, but serious poison ivy can cause you to go off your rocker.
Geoff and I had a bad case of it that we never could trace to any origin. It was on both our inner arms, so we suspected we'd hugged somebody -- possibly a furry somebody -- who'd rolled in it. I once had a case of multiple mosquito bites so bad I had to go to sleep with a cooler full of ice-packs by my bed and use them every time I woke up.
So you might try icepacks, if you start going really crazy with the itchies.
Glad estrogen works for you. It is a true Godsend for some. Charmaine told me once that she would take it even if it did increase her chances of other ailments, because she couldn't think straight without HRT.
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