The Scourge: Shingles and Me

Yep, I have shingles.  I haven't had a normal night's sleep since April 13, and I look like a weary old bag.  I'm not sure why I'm writing this post, except to let you know that you're acquainted with someone who's had shingles, and it's a bitch, every bit as bad as you've heard.

The pain I developed on the left side of my back two weeks ago, which I attributed to hefting a crate of oranges out of the Food Pantry fridge, turned out to be shingles.  The pain was the precursor to The Rash.  I won't go into it what that looks like--well, an ugly red trail extending from my backbone around the left side of my torso to my chest--but it hurt like hell.    (Two "hell's" and I'm only in the second paragraph.)

The muscle spasm phase was so disconcerting--muscles on the left side of my back seizing up so fiercely and unpredictably that I'd shout out loud.  "Stop it!"  "Shit!"  Or anything else that came to mind, Tourette's-like. I cancelled my birthday dinner in a restaurant because what would other patrons say?  A woman letting out loud, random shouts?   Also, the writhing. 

During that phase, my doctor prescribed a muscle relaxant and Aleve (nothing stronger due to doctors being freaked out about stronger meds turning us all into heroin addicts).  Ice helped a tiny bit. Heat was hopeless.

Ice was a minimal help

Several nights I didn't sleep at all, but paced around the house, sitting in various chairs trying to get comfortable, and switching out ice packs to try to soothe the pain.  If I got lucky, I'd get a couple of hours sleep from 6-8 am, when the really terrible pain seemed to retreat for the day, only to take hold again at 6 pm.

The appearance of the rash, which started small and seemed like eczema,  changed the picture.  Shingles? I thought, as I searched Google.   Tell me, no. I e-mailed the doctor, who requested photos.   "Definitely shingles," she wrote.  "Come in at 4:40 today."

I'll tell you this:  The doctor is much more sympathetic about shingles than about muscle spasms.  She's prescribed a six-week course of a med that she hopes will prevent the scary recurrent pain syndrome called,  "postherpetic neuralgia."  I'm to check in with her regularly.  She didn't push Acyclovir on me because I'm allergic to it, so I'm still coping with pain by using Aleve and ice.

This morning, I looked in the mirror and saw a seriously old-baggish,  unwell person.  I proceeded to use about half a tube under eye concealer to try to cover the big dark circles above and below my eyes. 

Definitely made things better

Then  I went to Safeway and bought a $4.99 miniature rose and a bag of peanut M&Ms to cheer myself up.  I smeared some more Tinactin on my rash (for some reason, this helps).

In case you're wondering:  I had The Shot.  My doctor talked me into it two years ago.  What she didn't tell me was the 50% of people who are vaccinated develop shingles anyway.  Maybe the shot means  a milder case, but who knows.  I would in no way describe this as mild.  You don't writhe with something "mild."

In the meantime, I had to abandon my normal life.  No pool exercise, no dinners or lunches with friends, very little e-mail.  No sewing.  I watched Foyle's War and HGTV.  I moaned. 

And now I've heard of two poor souls who had it twice.

Torturous, Tortuous, or How I Survived One More of Those Tests Everybody Hates

I'm decades beyond reproducing, but in some ways I'm a wannabe mom or grandmother, especially when it comes to reading blogs. I'm a sucker for baby pictures and anecdotes of small children saying cute things.   Plus, mommy bloggers have a ready-made subject 24/7.  Old-bag bloggers do not.  Not fair.


This week, the only thing I have to blog about is my every-five-year ordeal of having an endoscopy and colonoscopy.  Probably everyone who reads this blog has endured one or both of those, as I had, but I still found the whole process an ordeal, and I'd been dreading it for months.  ("Months!"  Jerry echoes.)

The day's menu

It sorta worked, Babs

On Prep Day, I woke up feeling anxious and picked on.  Why me?  (We're not talking logic here.)  What I wanted to feel was Sensible Resignation.

 Two things helped.  First, I thought about Barbara Bush's (punishing) mantra that you can choose to be happy or unhappy, which I don't really believe,  but I pretended I did for the day.  And the other thing that helped was to pretend I was Catholic (or Jewish, or any religion or practice where fasting is prescribed as a positive thing to do and,  more important, people survive it all the time). Also, I showered and dressed and put on make-up so that I wouldn't feel like a patient.

At 3 pm,  I drank the first of two small brown bottles of noxious goop.  It tasted salty and cloying, with a phony overlay of maraschino cherry flavoring.  At 8:30 pm, I barely made it through the second bottle. My advice is to: a) chill the bottles, and b) drink the goop through a straw.

 Ugh.

On Tuesday morning, Jerry and I got up at 5:30 am and made our way in the dark to Emeryville where there's a surgi-center owned by the doctors of Berkeley Gastroenterology.  Day after day, they perform these tests on people over 50 who are doing what they've been told they have to do. What a market!  I had a co-pay of $166 for procedures that I know from experience are billed at several thousand dollars.

By 7:30, I was stripped, gowned, and lying a gurney in a very chilly room, attached to an IV and a cardiac monitor.  The nurse hooked oxygen tubes into my nose that blasted cold air.  The warm blankets were not warm.

"If there's an earthquake, I'm screwed,"  I commented, looking at all the stuff I was hooked up to.

"Oh, we'd get you out right away," the anesthesiologist said. The nurse nodded.  I didn't actually believe them.   I thought they'd save themselves first.  Human nature.

The gastroenterologist appeared.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Cold and tense," I said.

He blew that off, cranked up some rock music, and told me they were starting a med.  The next thing I knew I was in a curtained cubicle.  It was over.

A nurse appeared.

'How are you?" she said.

"Excellent drugs!" I answered.  She laughed.  Most of the nurses were old enough to have had a colonoscopy or two, which helped.

I got dressed and scanned a written summary.  All fine, but I have "a tortuous colon," which made the procedure "unusually difficult."  A tortuous colon!  I resolved to go straight home and review the meaning of that word.*  I was vaguely proud of my colon for giving them are hard time.

Then the doctor himself cruised by and summarized the summary. When he was finished,  Jerry and I scooted out of there directly to Fat Apple's where I ate a giant, carb-loaded breakfast of pumpkin pancakes and scrambled eggs.   I rejoiced that it was over and felt so expansive that I showed the waitress my hospital bracelet and told her I'd just survived a colonoscopy.  She congratulated me;  she'd also had one, of course. Everyone has.

I lost a pound and a half, but will it stay lost?

And I have to go back in five years.

Phooey.

And because you read this far, here's a cute kid who survived his first day of kindergarten, a much bigger deal:

Note the transitional object

* "...marked by twists, turns, or bends."