Ug! The Monday before Thanksgiving there are few spots on my torso that look like bug bites. That’s weird, I thought, this spider musta taken a bite, step, bite, step all the way around my side. About 8 or 9 bites in all. Then I recalled a spot here and there over the previous week or two and thought, I need to vacuum or something, effin bugs. These spots though seemed a little more irritated. By midday I was thinking they might not be bug bites. I had taken the week off of work so going to New Haven to see a Dr wasn’t high on my list of things to do.. until I suspected shingles. From what I saw online, the rash certainly looked like shingles, appeared where shingles normally would appear and they were quite irritated. I went to bed Monday thinking “we’ll see what it looks like tomorrow, maybe it is bug bites after all”. Tuesday, not better. Ug. With the holiday at the end of the week, I suspected the rash wasn’t going to go away on its own and waiting till the next week to see the Dr didn’t seem like a brilliant idea so off to New Haven I went. One look and the doc said, yep, that’s shingles. Gave me some meds, freaked me out a little with an association to cancer and sent me on my way. WHOA!! Shingles can be related to cancer???? WTF? He gave me a CBC to be sure and assured me that in the “old days” they’d be worried but not so much anymore. “What the frik does that mean??” I thought all the way home. I went home and did some research. Ok, Shingles can be caused by a weakened immune system and is related to cancer because cancer lowers your immune system. Shingles can also be brought on by stress (I’m not stressed, I like to think). CBC came back normal, phew..

Shingles are contagious. Depending on who you ask it seems the most say it’s only contagious to those who have not had or been immunized against the chicken pox or those who have a compromised immune system. Doh, it’s Thanksgiving in like two days! I also had plans to go see some of my dear FD family that weekend.. cancer survivors, prolly have compromised immune systems. I ended up calling all the people I was planning to see and everyone was cool with my cooties. Yay. I would take precautions but I was happy my cooties didn’t screw up my holiday.

I think I was lucky. Most people gasp at the thought of shingles because they either had them horribly or heard of someone who have had them horribly. Yes they hurt. I was surprised at how they hurt but by no means did they cripple me. I think I caught it early enough and the rash seemed to stop in its tracks. Besides a small pesky patch on my boob (lost another piercing, grrr), the other spots ran their course and dried up. I did stay out of work for two weeks just to be sure I wouldn’t infect anyone there. As of now, about 4 weeks later, my spots are all healing up. I still get sharp pains and the spots get sore every now and then but I’m good. Just another blip.