What's Red, Swollen and Oozes all Over?

“What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.” - Annie Proulx from Brokeback Mountain.

Well in spite of my overwhelming optimism about the New Year, it appears as if 2009 has gotten off to a bit of a painful start.

Wednesday night after I got off work, I retired home to settle in with a nice cup of tea and a robot named Wall E. Excited about my digital date, I looked forward to starting off the New Year curled up in a nice blanket with a clear head. That was until I lay down. Pressing down against the sheets, I noticed that my upper back was unusually sore. Curling my eyebrows into a shape that spelt ‘odd,’ I put my date on pause and proceeded to the mirror in the washroom to investigate.

Twisting around to see what was mysteriously lurking behind me, I caught the faintest glimpse of what appeared to be a not-so-nice looking rash. Straining my neck around one more time to confirm my suspicions, I discovered the culprit to be exactly that. Measuring two inches on each side, the series of unappetizing red dots on my left shoulder blade connected into the shape of a lovely diamond. Except stingingly painful to the touch, this particular diamond was definitely not a boy’s best friend. 

Not one to leave a robot hanging, I put my pajama shirt back on and resumed my position lying back down on the bed. Deciding at that moment that my best course of action to solve the problem was to ignore it; like a good date I finished with Wall E. and left the clean-up until morning.

As a side note, as a redhead I have grown accustomed to the fact that my pale skin is not my best asset. So white it’s almost offensive, my epidermis and I have a love-hate relationship. The victim of several mysterious skin rashes and not to mention bouts with hives, acne, sunburns and heat rashes: let’s just say that if I had the choice to move out, I would. Now back to the story.

New Year’s Day I woke up to the warmth of a January sun who’s beam had cut directly through the frigid temperature outside to shine brightly on my face. Overcome with happiness like a twelve-year-old girl whose pregnancy test had just come back negative, a smile began to stretch across my face until I started to roll over.

Generally I have always associated good things with rolling over in bed, but that was most definitely not the case the morning of January 1, 2009. As my body began to turn, I winced at the pain that shot directly from my back and up across my chest. In a sneak-attack, I realized my skin-invader had gained ground overnight and successfully made headway on to my chest leaving its painful tracks beneath my left arm. No longer able to ignore it I gave in, and unlike Dido, put a white flag up on my door and headed to the hospital.

Taking a seat in the waiting room, I looked around to see my shipmates that had too woken up to find themselves in the same depressing boat as me. To my left was a lady grasping on to her right arm, the swollen result of which was a romantic skating date gone bad. Behind me was another lady whose thumb had become infected after a freak manicure accident, and to my right was a cute twenty-something boy who by the looks of it had injured his knee.

Propped up on two wheels, as he first locked himself in beside me for a moment I thought: could this be love at first wheelchair? Apparently we both decided it was best to take it slow, because it was not until two-and-a-half hours later that we actually said ‘hello.’ Using our ailments to break the ice, he told me that he had no memory of throwing out his knee celebrating a little too hard the night before. It was not until that morning when he literally fell out of bed, that he discovered the inconvenient truth he was unable to walk. Somewhat sad that I did not have a story to match (and not sure he was ready to hear about my date with a robot) I decided to play off the rash on my back and quickly changed the subject.

As another hour passed, the sun set in the windows before us and the two of us talked about life, school and what was in store for our futures. Exchanging quite a pleasant conversation, I was a tad dismayed to hear the three syllables sound out my name that I had written on the hospital clipboard close to four hours before. As I wished him goodbye, I followed the nurse down the hall and walked away with the slightest feeling the two of us might someday meet again.

Fast-forwarding to the present moment, $100 dollars of medication and one painfully-ugly looking back and chest later, turns out I have shingles. When some people’s immune systems are down they get a cough or maybe a stuffed nose. But I am not some people, and just as my luck would have it I get blisters all over my upper body.

That said things could be much worse. And with that in mind, I am still remaining unrelentingly positive about 2009. Just looks like this year is getting off to a bit of a red, bumpy and fluid-filled start.