Ailments

I’ve been feeling a little sorry for myself lately. Sunday before last, I was doing a very basic exercise I have done many times before (a squat press, if you must know), and I tweaked some back muscle. I have no idea why this happened. In retrospect, perhaps I was being a little aggressive when I was overtired, because I had done a super-quick overnight trip to Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New York City to participate in a sister’s yoga class and see my brother’s art show. All of which was lovely, but tiring.

Anyway, at the time, the little muscle tweak seemed minor, and so I didn’t immediately halt all activity and take drugs and apply warm compresses or whatever. But I suppose I should have, because by Monday morning I woke up feeling like I could barely move. I reported to my local drugstore and got three different drugs which, combined, allowed me to function in the most minimal way. By Tuesday evening I thought that there might be some improvement, and so I went to my yoga class, where I was deeply humbled and spent a lot of time in child’s pose. I kept drugging myself, but by Wednesday, not only did my back still hurt but… was it my imagination, or had I started to itch? By Thursday morning it was clear that I was experiencing some sort of full-body-hives situation, and it probably took another 24 hours for it to occur to me that perhaps these hives were a reaction to the pain killers. So I dropped all my new drugs and switched to Advil and some Zyrtec and for the last few days I’ve had a back ache (still!) and I am itchy all over.

Honestly? I am a mess. I considered taking a picture of my face, but it is currently quite unappealing. My skin is rough with visible flakes. For the last two nights I tried epsom salt baths, and last night I made the mistake of putting my typical night face lotion on and it burned like a harsh chemical peel. And we’re not talking about something super-strong or retinol-y or whatever, just some basic Cerave. And so then I thought that perhaps my face needed more help, and I tried some aloe, and once again my face screamed for mercy. And then I started Googling with abandon, and the Internet Gods reminded me that I have topical Benadryl for bug bites, and so I schmeared that icky, sticky stuff hither and yon. And it hasn’t obviously helped, but it also didn’t feel like I was blasting my face with a blow torch, so I took that as a good sign.

In spite of all of that, I soldiered on, doing some voter registration at GED classes with the League of Women Voters, seeing Dodi & Diana at Cap Rep (not my cuppa tea, but I also got to see and loved & Juliet at Proctors: I highly recommend it!). On Saturday, Cute W and I each drove to Northampton to drop off a car with J, then we hung out for the day, eating noodles and chocolate and shopping for our neighbor’s birthday present a A2Z Science & Toys, which has such a magical unicorn bathroom that I felt compelled to take pictures.

Then we went to MASS MoCa to see The Head and the Heart before driving home late that night. The next day, Mother’s Day, I spent most of the day in bed, either reading or sleeping with the kitties.

I roused myself in time for us to take a bike ride to Zhu’s Kitchen in Rotterdam for dinner. Zhu’s was new to us and extremely quick and tasty, although we’re likely to just do take out in the future. Actually, I can definitely see biking there again just for another taro smoothie. And cross your fingers that this fortune cookie comes true:

Meanwhile, we’ll keep plugging along, but if you have any healing energy, send it my way, please.