Inquisitrix

This probably goes under the heading of ‘Too Much Information’, but it’s what has been going on with me and you know, that’s life. I had every intention of posting last week, but I have been diagnosed with Shingles. When I told my Mom, she said she wasn’t surprised.

First of all, I have been sick since New Years Eve. Four and a half months of doctors, lots of poking, prodding, MRIs, CT scans and momentary contemplation of some woo-woo religion in an effort to gain some divine healing (which never happened - I may have been ill, but I’m not stupid). Sick has been my new normal and I have been just FUCKING TIRED. All of the time. My doctors kept shaking their heads and finally, we figured out that, with the exception of the nasty stomach infection that curtailed any New Years celebration that Rohan and I never got around to planning, my allergies have been wreaking havoc on my system. I will never be able to be without allergy meds again. Which, in the grand scope of things, is fine.

Within two days of starting up with allergy meds again (stopped by a numbskull doctor that told me that I just needed Flonase, who was WRONG - Note to Dr. McDumbass: I would like the last four months of my life back!), my sinuses are playing nice and I can actually sleep through the night without drugging myself into a comatose stupor with cough medicine. Makes for a more productive day without needing five naps. Before lunch. Seriously.

So all of this farting around with my immune system has not come without a price. One afternoon I thought I had been bitten by bugs on my back. I freaked out. I can’t have BUGS. NOT IN MY LIFE! I just don’t like bugs. Of any kind. But I was not feeling well again - and like a lot of things, I just didn’t have the energy to care.

My mom (who is a Nurse) told me that I might have Shingles. I did some research, and decided that wasn’t the case. Because I am so brilliant. And I continued to believe that I was brilliant until the bug bites didn’t go away for like, a week and a half. Then the ‘bug bites’ started hurting like crazy. My back was on fire. Since my deductible was long taken care of for the year, I thought I might was well go see the girls at the Doctor’s office. We are on a first name basis and I needed to catch up on the office gossip.

During the exam, the doc (Not Dr. McDumbass) lifted up the back of my shirt to listen to me wheeze, and he asked me how long the area on my back had been a problem - It had been a week and a half. He told me I had Shingles. I have never wanted bug bites so much in my life. When I had Chickenpox as a kid, I had them badly. I had Chickenpox in my eyes, down my throat and in all sorts of horrible places. I was six years old and thirty years later, the Chickenpox has come back to haunt me.

Essentially, people that get Shingles usually are pretty sick and suffer from a compromised immune system (from things like organ transplants, Cancer, Aids, etc.). The virus (Yes, it’s a herpes virus, but not THAT herpes virus. SHIT. I am going to get SO much spam now.) lays dormant in your system until it’s kicked off, travels along the nerve pathways and generally causes a painful, itchy rash. For me, thankfully, the worst part of the rash was mild and resembled really angry bug bites. The rest looks like hives. When the rash first appears, I could transmit Chickenpox to someone that has never had them before. However, once a person has had Chickenpox, they can’t be infected, because they have their own strain of the virus. Luckily Rohan has. My sister-in-law joked with me that I should come over and play with their kids because they haven’t had the pox yet. She is so funny! At least, I think she was kidding.

And more often than not, stress plays a part in Shingles developing. I have had every other test under the sun and I am as healthy as a person could be. I guess the whole international move, buying a house, holidays thing was a bit too much for me. I have, no doubt, been under a lot of stress. Rohan’s health hasn’t been perfect either, so I have been worried about him, my family, my friends and the state of the whole goddamn WORLD. And one could say that I suffer from work-life balance issues. I could have easily benefited from total body massages every day. And a personal pool boy. A maid. A cook. Maybe a personal assistant.

But since I don’t quite have the income of a rockstar, the odds of those things happening are remote. So I have been thinking of ways that I can de-stress. I am completely at a loss for this subject. I am a bit of a pressure junkie. If I don’t have deadlines, I don’t seem to perform. I push, push, push. I can’t relax enough to meditate. I have thought about yoga (Bikram sounds good to me, but the heat would aggravate things right now). I told Rohan that I needed champagne and bon-bons every day and that I needed to quit my job. Rohan didn’t buy the whole bit about the bon-bons and told me I couldn’t quit my job without a note from my doctor.

So I took the first step in what any respectable stressed out corporate woman would do: I bought a bike!!! It will be delivered on Friday. The night before, we watched a movie called ‘The House of D‘ (VERY good) and the kids were on bikes a lot. Then, I was at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. The weather was glorious and I saw a lot of people on bikes. Then we sat through the Earth Day parade and all of the hippies rode by on their bikes. They all were smiling. And it all clicked for me - I remembered how great it was to feel the wind through my hair, the sense of freedom. The cool fringe on my handle bars! I NEEDED A BIKE!!!

So that afternoon, I tried out eight different models. Apparently, I am very tall for a girl (duh) so my frame has to be ordered. Unless I wanted to take a boys bike (in blue, blech), which I did not, thank you very much. I don’t want a crotch bar! Even if the crotch bar is now a uni-sex feature. Besides, I wanted fenders, a basket on the back (can anyone say picnics in the park?), a cool ching-ching bell, and a flag with skull and crossbones. I am still working on the flag for my bike. But I am not going to let it stress me out.

So, what do you do to de-stress?