Shingles

Is nothing like chicken pox...they share the same virus, but two distinct diseases.  This is not an annoying itch and collection of bumps and rashes like when you were little.

Slept sporadically last night - at one point i woke up to a searing pain (like someone was stabbing and shocking me along the nerve line of the outbreak).  This morning I feel pain along the line, and now a new itchiness on my belly - good morning, newest lesion on my upper belly. Shingles is a ring of fire-starts near your midline and then circles along your side and ends around back at your spine.  The neat thing is that it literally forms a half circle around your body and traces the line of the nerve fiber that harbors the infection.  Only neat from a biological perspective.  I half 6 separate patches (lesions) that I can constantly feel (chemical burn like) and ice packs, nothing makes go away.  Wearing a cotton shirt is the least painful option - must keep them covered as only the contents of the rash would be infective to Peanut (or anyone else that never had chickenpox).  On the bright side, shingles is not as contagious as chickenpox-not airborne and only spread through contact with rash.  Also, I cannot give shingles or chickenpox to anyone who has had chickenpox. Whew, Ian.  
This is a pain like no other - shingles is a real terror.  It is worse to endure than any case of poison ivy I have ever had (even the time my eyes had swollen shut).  Hundreds of times worse.  I don't know how I will handle the baby and Peanut and this shingles.  Before I had hoped to deliver the baby Sunday or Monday because I was concerned about the size of him...but now I would like the antiviral meds some time to hopefully work so the shingles is more manageable...so late next week, okay baby?  Also, there is a chance for the baby to contract chickenpox from me (and then be prone to pediatric shingles) if my rash is contagious after birth, so the more time the better.  Poor baby, first his mother is gestational diabetic and increases his risk for complications and now shingles.  

Ginger slept by me last night...big oaf took up major space on the bed but it made me smile in an otherwise tough night.  Love that dog!

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