Eczema Herpeticum - Progress in Pictures

Pictures of my progress, after getting Eczema Herpeticum. I am soooo glad the worst is gone.

Day 3	Day 5
Day 7	Day 11

Flair for Flare Ups

I am annoyed.  Actually I was mad, but Lisa happened to call me just now asking me if I would be a reference for her husband.  Thankfully, and divinely timed, the subject of her call was so far removed from what made me grit my teeth in anger, that I have calmed down.  Slightly.

After an emotional punch in the face this past week, dealing with this Eczema Herpeticum/misdiagnosis/why me?/I am worthless and ugly/I give up what's the point ordeal, I started to heal.

I'm not sure at what point my mind started to change about my outlook.  (long pause because I'm trying to figure it out)

I remember.  It happened this past Wednesday, after 4 days of not knowing what was wrong with me. The dermatologist, Dr. Andrews (she reminds me of Julie Andrews) took my face gently in both her latex-gloved hands, leaned in to peer closely at my face, and simply, almost affectionately, said, "Eczema Herpeticum."  I swear I almost kissed her.  Maybe I should have been upset, but I was so damn happy! I actually slapped my hand on my knee, like a bad actress, grinned and shouted, "I knew it!  I did some research on the Internet and knew this is what it was!"

It is much easier for me to tackle a problem when I know what it is.  The not knowing or not being sure always (always) is what eats away at my mind, heart, body and soul.

The Monday and Tuesday before my Herpeticum party at the dermatologist's were the lowest, darkest emotional days in my personal eczema history.  It is the new "zero" on my eczema-related mood ruler.  I never want to be there again. My husband is a calm, logical man, but I know I scared and worried him. He's not a "freaker-outer", like me.  I let my skin have such control over me and my life and my happiness, that on Tuesday morning, as tears broke through my swollen, crater-covered, pus-lined eyes and stung down the side of my face into my ears, I whispered to my husband, "What if I stay like this? It may not go away. I'm sorry, but I can't live with this. I can't." I meant it.  I planned for a closed casket funeral with only the most flattering pictures of me. I am/was ashamed to feel this way and at the same time, thought it was a logical way for me to feel rested from feeling ugly and depressed and hopeless.  No one was going to figure out what I had and if they did, my skin is still fucked up for life anyway.

My mom always used to tell people, "Don't tell Betty what to do. She doesn't like it.  If you do, she'll just get mad and do the opposite. She like to do things on her own."  There's a little rebel in me.  She rose up from the dead at that dermatologist's office.  She's crude and brash and likes to stick her middle finger up at people or situations she thinks are unfair, stifling or plain wrong.  But. It's all done in honour of ME.  I like her.

So, when I receive a comment on Twitter saying  "sad thing is u might now get flair ups the rest of your life. plus your skin could discolor/scar..which happened to my 5Dd ", my 'lil rebel..(wait she's me)...  I get mad.  


The tweet sounds like a vow to accept hopelessness and she is trying to share with me like a damn poisonous cookie! I'm annoyed, too, with the misspelling of "flare up", because "flair" means to have a knack or talent for something.  Great. So, I should expect to have a flair for flare ups???  You almost had me.  I cannot lie. And I love almost all cookies.  


But, please take no offense.This is directed at your  tweet, not you personally, because this acceptance invaded me earlier this week and tried to kill me.

'Lil Rebel wants it OUT!!!

Eczema Rollercoaster

I am trying to watch Jersey Shore to keep my mind of my ballooning face.  I am trying hard not to cry over my face.  It's just a face right?  It's what's inside that count right?   Right?

Riiiiiigggghhhttt??????

So why am I crying?  I swear my face is getting worse not better.  I just burst into our bedroom, turned on the light and stuck my face abruptly into my husband, Z's face and cried, "It's getting worse isn't it?  My face is swelling more.  Isn't it?!"  I didn't even wake him first.  He just woke up startled to my blistery, swollen, red face with my weepy, red eyes, desperately demanding his assessment. "Huh. Ummm..no, it looks the same."

"Are you sure?"  God, I sound so pathetic.  Please tell me I look okay and that I'm not ugly.  Yes, I know it's natural for me to be worried about an infection on my face getting worse.  Underneath that though, I am really worried that I won't get my face back.  See?  See how pathetic that is?

"Okay.  If your sure, I'll wait 'til morning  to see if it really is any worse."  I want to assure him that I'm not panicking.  I don't want him to know that I'm looking in the mirror every 10 minutes counting the blisters and measuring the expansion of my face by millimeters.

It's 1:46 a.m. and about 15 minutes since I looked in the mirror.  I don't know why I can't just tell Z I want to go to Emergency now.  Am I a vain, shallow person to be embarrassed to sit in the Emergency waiting room and have people stare at me?  I know. I know.  My logical mind tells me, people in Emerg have much more important things than my face to be concerned about--like their broken leg or their heart attack.  But still.  This is what goes through my head.

This irrational, stupid fear is there.

GUEST POST by Toribeth

Toribeth tweeted me today.  She had read my post, Makin' Love to Eczema and had a story to share about her first sleepover at her boyfriend's (now husband).  I love other people's personal stories.  I love the extraordinary ordinary stories of their lives.  I love how someone's story, like Toribeth's, makes her unique and, at the same time, just like me.  I don't know why. Maybe I'm just nosy and insecure 

Thank you so much Toribeth for sharing your story and letting me post it here.  I totally get it. :) 

                                                                                                       XGB

Congratulations, you vixen—you've finally spent the night.  You've
successfully woken up in an unfamiliar house next to your snoring
boyfriend.  But now you kind of have to pee, and it's beginning to
occur to you that you should take off last night's makeup and make
yourself look all kinds of appealing so that your man doesn't take off
screaming when he wakes up.

So you sneak out of bed, scuttle your scrumptious, sexy butt down the
hallway and quietly close the bathroom door behind you.  Your first
thought is that half of your makeup is smeared all over the
pillowcase, and you've absolutely got to get the rest of it off your
face as soon as possible.  After splashing some warm water on your
face, you look down, scanning the sink for face wash.

There is no face wash on the sink.  A quick but through search proves
that there is none  available in the medicine cabinet, in the drawer
under the sink, in the shower stall, or on the shelf above the toilet.
 There is absolutely no face wash in the entire bathroom.

Okay, no facial cleanser... but you could take off your make-up with
lotion, right?  You look around.  There is no lotion, not even a tub
of that greasy, gooey stuff that lumberjacks supposedly use on their
hands.  Your choices appear to be between an aged, cracked bar of
Irish Spring soap in the shower and the pump of antibacterial soap on
the counter.  Cautiously pumping a little of the antibacterial soap
into your hand, you notice that it's bright purple and smells like a
rainforest.  After carefully rinsing the soap off, you begin to root
around in the medicine cabinet for a tube of Neosporin.

You finally locate the ointment and start rubbing your hypoallergenic,
doctor-approved, fully organic mineral makeup off your face with a wad
of toilet paper (there are no cotton balls, you've checked—but at
least your man buys soft toilet paper.)  God, your face is itchy.  You
peer into the mirror to make sure you've got both the makeup and the
Neosporin off your face, and you absentmindedly reach down to scratch
your leg.

Look at you, you sexy bitch!  You make a pouty face in the mirror.
Wow, your leg is really itchy.  It kind of feels funny—oh, shit.  Oh,
shit, shit, shit, shit.  Your entire thigh is red, and you've just
scratched a big hole in it.  Now you're bleeding.  Shit!  Where are
the band-aids?  Shit!  You can't just put a band-aid over it, you've
irritated your entire thigh.  Shit!

You turn and look at your other leg.  Also red, also itchy.  It slowly
occurs to you that your shoulders are a little itchy—shit, now you're
thinking about it, and they itch a lot!  Your hands!  Your feet!
Shit!

It dawns on you that you should start thinking about the culprit here.
 After all, you weren't itchy yesterday.  Yesterday, you were minding
your own business, washing up with your all-natural,
super-moisturizing body wash and your prescription steroid shampoo,
applying your dermatologist-recommended lotion and putting on your
clothes washed in ultra-gentle, hypoallergenic laundry detergent.

...laundry detergent.

You reach for the nearest towel, pick it up with your fingertips and
sniff.  It smells like a cheap imitation of lavender, and from the
feel of it, your man doesn't know what fabric softener is.  What you
smelled in the bedroom last night wasn't an air freshener, it was the
sheets.  The sheets that you slept on.  The sheets that touched your
feet and your legs and your arms and your hands.

At least he let you borrow a shirt, so the rest of your body didn't
touch the—shit!  The shirt was washed in crap detergent, too!

...you're going to have to have a little talk when he wakes up.  Shit!

Fists of Flaky

Hands. A show of hands. A helping hand.  "I've got to hand it to you."  Handstand. Handshake. "Put your hands up."  "Put your hands together for our next guest."  The hand off. Healing Hands.

I am sick and tired of hands.  My hands.  I try to make fists with both my hands and the deep red cracks that are starting to heal (again) threaten to stretch open and raw (again).  I thought I would do it this time.  I thought I could do it this time.  I thought that this time, I would heal my hands.

It seemed to be going good for a few days. I applied that stupid all-natural ingredients cream religiously, 3 to 4 times a day, all over the back of my hands, my fingers and wrists.  I denied that I felt any torturous tingling, crawling, prickling.  "Mind over matter.  Mind over matter.  Mind over matter." I chanted encouragingly to myself.

I think it's working.  There's that one spot, though, just under the last joint of my left thumb that tingles and prickles louder than all the other areas of both hands.  I must shut it up.  I press my right thumb firmly on this spot, shutting up the loud itch.  "mmmfff ss ss!"  The itch screams against the pressure of my thumb.  Shut up itch.  Tonight you're my bitch for once and you will obey me. We've done it your way for too long.   I rub my thumb hard against the itch to muffle it's insistent screams. I will erase it's existence with my little, but powerful, right thumb by rubbing it to death.  


"Mmmfff ss ss!"  What the fuck?!  Okay itch, you asked for it.  I lose my mind and start clawing at the itch.  Gotcha.   Aahhh. Sweet pain.  Relief. Taking advantage of my momentary loss of focus, the itch deftly races to the inside of my wrist, waiting for me to seek it out.  I take the bait.  I claw at the itch now attacking my wrist.  "You will not win this time!!!  I control you!!" I cry desperately.  


The itch stands over me now. Mocking my words, in a screech that scrapes painfully across my entire hand, "NO.  I CONTROL YOU BITCH."  I desperately claw and dig at my left hand, fingers and wrist trying to rid it of itch.  It jumps to my right hand and the fingers on both my hands are a blur as they furiously and simultaneously scratch and rub the opposite hand into a swollen, cracked, bleeding mess.  I am a goner. Defeated.  Again.

Makin' Love to Eczema

Right now, my husband, Z,  is practically sleeping on his face, but still manages to snore loud and deep.  How does he do it? I want to put a pillow over his face to mute the sound. But, that seems unkind.

We went over to Lisa and Scott's house to hang out and have dinner.  As usual, the boys had to drink in each other's company.  The two of them are like a dysfunctional couple who need to drink to get along with each other.  They get along when they're sober, but for whatever reason, alcohol makes their bond stronger.  Lisa didn't drink because she's five months pregnant.  I didn't drink because 1)  I'm trying to clear up my eczema situation and 2) who the fuck would drive us home. (I have such a potty mouth.)

We left at 8:30, which is earlier than usual, but I had promised Z this afternoon that we would have sex tonight.  Yes. Sex. No. Not make love.  We already have love and we are not making more of it tonight.  I'm too tired for that and I have to get up early for work tomorrow.  I just promised him, that's all.

Eczema sex is definitely not a sexy, sultry, steamy affair.  I hate it.  I mean, right now, I have itchy hives on my chest and my inner thighs as result of all that looove Z was making to me.

Love hurts.