bitch, bitch, bitch
Saturday, Jun. 18, 2005 - 5:27 p.m.
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When one lives in northen Minnesota and one finally has a string of consecutive days filled with sunshine and 70+ degree weather, one does not stay indoors to blog. That being said, here�s the update I know you all have been waiting for!
Have you ever had a migraine? I used to be able to say no...that was up until Wednesday afternoon. OMG! People really get these on a regular on-going basis?!? I had one Wednesday afternoon and another much worse one on Thursday night that lasted all through the night (it even woke me up a few times!) and into Friday morning. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE! I seem to be ok now but I�ll be ready if there�s a next time. I sent the husband to the pharmacy for some liquid-filled capsules of migraine stopper stuff so if it happens again (don�t happen again!!) I�m a little more prepared because, just between you and me, regular ol� Advil doesn�t do SHIT for a migraine - even if you take way more than you�re supposed to take.
And now, as long as I�m whining, I�d like to bitch about my hands...
Sometime around the age of 10 or 11 my hands suddenly exploded into dry, flaky, and rough monstrosities. I�ve been to half a dozen or so dermatologists between then and now and no one ever knew what it was - though none of them had any problems prescribing various amounts of expensive lotions, salves, and creams. None of said prescriptions ever did anything except burn and/or make things worse. I even had one dermatologist (in the early 90s) who was convinced that what I had was simply a bad case of athlete�s foot, you know, ON MY HANDS - wtf? The only similar symptom was the dry skin - I never had (or have) things like �itching, scaling, inflamation, [or] blisters� but sure, we�ll go ahead and put on some LOTION DESIGNED FOR ATHLETE�S FOOT! Asshat.
Finally around age 17 I found out what it actually was that I had/have though it wasn�t much of a relief to �know� once I found out that it simply means �really dry skin� and that �we don�t know how to get rid of it� - yippee! What I have is known as Keratolysis Exfoliativa or Peeling Skin Syndrome which, as you may have read, �is an extremely rare inherited disorder characterized by continual, spontaneous skin peeling (exfoliation).� So basically the palm of my hands and the undersides of my fingers just exfoliate themselves a lot faster than they�re supposed to leaving me with flaky, peeling hands and areas of skin that probably weren�t ready to be exposed to the world yet.
For the most part it�s manageable - I wear gloves whenever possible (you should see how many of these I go through during simple meal preparation!) because the less my hands get wet the better. I also go through more hand lotion than any one person should, but a girl�s gotta do what a girl�s gotta do. HOWEVER, about twice a year (winter and summer) my hands REALLY explode and there�s nothing I can do but decrease my water contact time even further and use even MORE lotion while spending a week or so waiting for my hands to return to their normal state of craptasticness.
The following photo was taken (or rather, my hand was in the scanner) yesterday a.k.a. about 3-4 days into this particular attack. This picture looks a full 50% better than it did on days 1 and 2 so be thankful that I didn�t think to stick my hand in the scanner on one of those days. Also, this photo is not for the easily grossed out so, if you are, LOOK AWAY NOW!
Nice huh? I love that what I have is so rare - makes me feel special :-P Thankfully I only have it on my hands though. Most people who have this, all 5 of us, have it on their faces so I guess, as with most things in life, it could be worse. I know the definition says it�s genetic (thanks mom & dad!) but I�m the only person in my family, as far back as we can trace, that has this. I can only hope that me having it is some sorta fluke and that I�ll not pass it along to some poor unsuspecting child who ends up with me as his or her mother... |