I’ve been scarce here this past week, and for a reason: I’ve felt lousy since Tuesday or so, with headaches, mild queasies, and a weird prickly surface pain on the skin of my back, just under my left shoulder blade. The headaches may be due to my trick neck, which throws all kinds of tantrums (including headaches) whenever I look up too high. The back pain was a puzzle; I thought it might have been a pulled muscle from a rough weight training session a week ago Thursday, but it’s not as deep a pain as with other muscles I’ve molested over the years.
Carol scratched her head as I downed another couple of Tylenol yesterday noonish, and said, “I sure hope it isn’t shingles.” I didn’t think so. No spots. So about 3:30, when I found myself scratching an itch on my back, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
Spots.
We called a dermatologist I saw some years back, but Friday being Friday, his office was already closed. With that not an option, Carol sent me packing to our HMO’s Urgent Care facility so fast my head spun. Sure ’nuff, the little bastards that gave me chicken pox in 1960 have been hanging out in my nerve fibers for half a century, and just happened to choose this week to come out and party.
So I’m on antivirals and Prednisone for awhile. Physician said I did very well by coming in an hour and a half after pegging the symptoms–which is all due to my brilliant wife’s intuition and expertise–since most people don’t look for help until the outbreak is much further along and the antivirals don’t work as well. That’s good, because if it gets a whole lot worse than this I’ll be a very unhappy guy.
More as it happens. Or doesn’t. Oremus.