Shocked, surprised, & miserable. That's how I'll explain my Saturday morning on January 21st and the following week. I'll go back to Thursday night. Right before bed, I told Justin I was just feeling off. Like I was maybe getting sick...kind of cold but I was really tired and thought that could have a lot to do with it. I had been going to bed late every night that week and I figured it was just catching up with me. The entire night I did not sleep good. My body just hurt! My muscles, bones, plus headache....in the morning I took some Tylenol and after that kicked in, I felt a lot better so I got me and the kids ready for work and went to Lisa's. I took Tylenol throughout the day to help the aches, but towards the end of the day, even on Tylenol, I was getting chills. I left work early thinking I was getting the flu and hoping I didn't just expose Lisa's family to the flu. I laid around that evening, but then got up and got ready because Justin's brother was proposing and invited us all go to watch at the Syracuse theater. I tried to stay away from people because I thought I had the flu and just avoided contact. The next morning I got up and noticed spots on my face wondering why I was breaking out so bad...thinking I just woke up with 3 or 4 new zits. I got in the tub to soak my muscles and as I was laying there, I looked down and noticed a red spot on my stomach. I thought how that was weird and maybe I had a bug bite...but then noticed another one...then another...and another...now I was starting to freak out and called Justin. I didn't know what it was...my mom had always told me growing up that I had the chicken pox when I was really little...so it couldn't be that, could it? Plus, NO ONE gets the chicken pox anymore. Shingles, maybe? So I called my mom. We ruled out that it was shingles and figured that it was, in fact, chicken pox. I kept reading online to see if it could be anything else, but I soon became 100% sure that it was chicken pox. It gets better, I was supposed to speak in church the next day. I felt like a liar telling them I had the chicken pox...like I had made up a disease. That afternoon, Justin and my dad gave me a blessing. I know because of that blessing, it went through my body faster and it gave me rest and helped my testimony grow. That entire next week, I didn't have to worry about being a mom. I was able to do what my body needed me to do. So many people stepped (including Justin) and helped. For the first couple of days, I would try the oatmeal baths, calamine lotion, took benadryl and Tylenol. Monday Justin went to the store to do our shopping for me and he talked to the pharmacist at Walmart. That was such a blessing! He told Justin exactly what I needed to do, what I needed to take and explained how chicken pox in adults is so much more painful and lasts longer than it does in children. The things he told me to do wouldn't make it better, but would actually make it worse first, but make it quicker. He said to take baking soda baths - a full box of baking soda in my bath. He said that Benadryl was the worst thing I could take and to take either Claritin, Zyrtec or Allegra. Then Tylenol as I needed for fevers and pain, and said I could use the anti-itch cream I had at home (hydrocortizone 1%)...some creams make it worse but that was a good one. This was so much more help than the nurse I had called that morning who pretty much told me I just have to let it run its course and there was nothing I could do but keep anti-itch creams on me for comfort. After 3-4 days of having them, the fevers and bone and muscle pains were gone and it was just waiting for the blisters to go through their cycle. I definitely noticed a difference with the baking soda baths. Once I started that, the blisters stayed smaller. I had some that got huge on my back and stomach that had showed up from day 1, but all of the others stayed fairly small. Each day, new blisters would show up until Friday morning I woke up with no new spots and I was just waiting for a handful on my stomach and legs to cloud up and scab over. I was on a timeline here because Brian Regan was on Saturday. Saturday morning I woke up and they were all scabbed over. I still itched for a couple of weeks and to this day I still have scabs that are healing. But the itching is mostly gone now and I'm hoping in a couple of weeks, I won't even notice that I had the pox. I never want to go through anything as miserable as that again. The pain I felt would make tears flow and at one point I told Justin I was ready for my epidural. I would rather give birth over and over than do this again. It was crappy! I am so thankful for the prayers, my blessing, and all of the help I had, plus all of the many people that offered to help. So thanks to you all!
(And no, I did NOT take any pictures...that was the most disgusting disease I have ever experienced!)
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