Itchy and Scratchy
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
(not related to this story at all)
The last three weeks have been a little slice of hell. Unfortunately, it also included a peek at heaven, which made hell all the worse.
The week of Jan. 20, I came down with a cold. That Friday, I went to one of those urgent care facilities. The doctor shot me in the rear with steroids and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. The following Monday, I saw my regular doctor, who double-checked what the urgent care doctor did and then loaded me up with inhalers, antihistamines, and more (this time, oral) steroids.
By the end of the second week, the respiratory issues started to clear. But I felt weird, like I was on speed. I also noticed that my eyesight was getting really bad. I nearly panicked, because the only symptom of my pituitary tumor in 2001 was rapidly failing eyesight. I was facing a trip to the neurosurgeon the following week to obtain the results of my last MRI, so I was a bit worried. (Everything turned out OK on that front.)
Next, I started itching. At first it was just my hands. I thought it was dry skin, because I had been doing dishes all weekend. I switched from my usual Ivory soap to an Aveeno bath bar to try to sooth my skin.
The Aveeno bath bar consists mostly of oatmeal flour and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Essentially, it’s a compressed oatmeal cookie (sans raisins, nuts, and cinnamon). The interesting thing about bathing with an oatmeal cookie is that you aren’t really cleaning yourself with soap, you’re just coating yourself with Crisco. I was greasing up good, as my grandmother used to say. While my skin was silky soft, dozens of tiny zits popped up on my face. To top it off, the bar didn’t work. The itchy and scratchy burning skin continued with a vengeance.
Three weeks into this whole ordeal, I went back to the doctor. After listening to my litany of complaints, she excused herself for a few minutes and came back into the room with a thick sheaf of paper — the monograph of the antibiotic I had been taking — and started underlining a bunch of things. Verdict: A classic allergic reaction to the antibiotics. Now noted in my records is the fact that I am allergic to Biaxin, the first drug allergy I’ve ever had. Nasty stuff, indeed.
Here’s the peek at heaven part. During this time, I suddenly noticed that my knees didn’t hurt. Not one bit. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Not the joints, not the muscles. It felt wonderful, like I was 30 years younger. Three months of physical therapy hadn’t made me feel this good. The only problem is that, while it was the first time in at least a decade I could walk with no pain, I couldn’t go two steps without stopping to scratch something.
But now, as the itch fades, my vision returns to normal, and my respiratory system returns to what passes for normal, my knees are also returning to “normal”. Over the weekend, as a storm front moved through the area, I felt a familiar pain in the knee joints. Darn. I was hoping the steroids would outlast the itch by a couple more weeks.