Thursday, December 9
1:28 pm

sideshow me

so i'm stumbling home at 6 this morning, sleepy and buzzed and pretty much generating my own happy little atmosphere of absolut fumes and cigarette smoke.

i bathe, change and hop into bed, snuggling in all prepared for the fantastic slumber that usually occurs after minor boozage and major lack of sleep.

and i fall asleep.

for twenty minutes.

because that's when i am woken by the most intense burning and itching sensation in the palm of my hands. i'm not kidding here, it felt exactly like what i'd imagine peeing with an STD would feel like.

anyway, because i'm still incredibly tired, i scratch irritably at them. and i say "scratch irritably", but my palms cry "draw blood". you see, the thing is, despite my being the lightest sleeper on earth, i can sometimes get back to sleep after being woken, but only if i'm not fully roused from my restful state. however - and this is important - if i am too much disturbed, i will neverevereverever be able to go back to sleep again. this may go a long way to explaining my constitution in the mornings for some of you. point being, i wasn't exactly very inclined to question the strangeness of burny itchy palms at that time. it was more of a please-just-let-me-get-to-sleep-i'll-do-anything thing.

so i scratch. (irritably.) and i go to sleep.

for twenty minutes.

and this goes on for, oh, say, three hours. during which, just so you know, the itch has gone from merely agonizing to bloody intolerable. it seems pain decided to join in the itch-and-burn party somewhere along the line. and at the point where i've pretty much exfoliated down to the bone, the itch subsides a little.

then my legs start itching.

but i'm calm. i knew that i'd received a number of mosquito bites on the leg through the night, so i didn't get extremely angry and fling a pillow out the window. or anything.

so anyhow, it'd struck me around the second or so hour that violently angry palms do not qualify as very normal palmal activity. i'd begun to entertain delightful images of fleas leaving tiny, invisible bites on my palms because of some filthy toilet seat i'd touched. and fleas, leaping camouflaged over my black sheets to other parts of my body. and me, having to shave myself bald and soak in turpentine before i could be let out to play with the other puppies.

at some point, i think, it's possible that i'd started dreaming.

i wake up.

the palms, while red and swollen, were not itching. i knew they were red and swollen because i'd pried open an eyelid to take a look. and things were looking good.

and then i turn my hand around.

at this point, i'd like you to imagine that this story had an accompanying soundtrack. now imagine the point where the music goes really wonky, and the loud, screamy violins of terror start up.

my hand was covered in rashes.

i flick the sheets off, look down at my legs, and for that one moment, i wonder who switched my legs out while i was asleep. there were lumps, huge and tiny and feta cheesey, all over my legs. i repeat the process stripped down, and confirm that the rashes are all over.

it's here that the itching kicked in.

(the story's almost hit the time horizon, and it's probably way past its expiration date so i'll speed it up.)

so i rush to the doctor in a blind panic, who confirms that it is an allergic reaction, though to what, she doesn't know, and i barely restrain myself from snapping that all those years of med school must've really paid off.

(i was very, very tired. and itchy.)

i manage to keep from angering the person who keeps me in the happy pills, though. i get roughly four billion pills.

aaand now i'm at home. typing this, because tired as i am, i cannot get back to sleep. i've just realised that i forgot to mention to the good doctor that i'm currently on another massive cocktail of meds because of the wisdom tooth extraction that i underwent a few days ago. ah well, maybe the combination will form some glowy substance inside me and i'll get those superpowers i've always wanted. a girl can dream.

you know, the rashes look really hideous. and bear also in your mental image of me the bazhang that has taken over my cheek because of the operation.

i should just go ahead and pitch a tent and charge admission.

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= 5 =

Comments.

 Anonymous • 10 December 2004 at 18:18

yknow what. the last time i had an allergy it was worse, i had itchy soles (which i couldnt scratch cos i was out in my SHOES) and oh yes, itchy palms, itchy skin in general. BUT. what i also got was, a swollen gigantic RUBBER LOOKING lip and puffy eyelids. and yknow how small my eyes already are. =)-flea

 

 bedlamgirl • 11 December 2004 at 18:16

heh yeah, the itchy soles came during the second attack that night. my feet were huuuge
the rash didn't hit my face, but i suspect that even if it had? you wouldn't have been able to tell. i have bazhang face!

 

 Anonymous • 13 December 2004 at 02:45

hope you're better now! i still owe you a treat, don't i?

sam

 

 bedlamgirl • 13 December 2004 at 04:36

hey! yes i'm all better now, no thanks to your endless taunting
you owe me waaay more than that and you know it, hon
i'll settle for dinner at mortons though - i'm cheap like that. ;)

 

 Anonymous • 13 December 2004 at 04:47

you're online, why aren't u on MSN??

i just realized that something pops up when u mouse over bazhang!

and i'm hoping you typoed and meant macs instead of mortons....

sam

 

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