Whole lot of scratching

A quick and fierce episode of chicken pox paid me a visit a couple of days ago, making me miss work, a City Council meeting and opportunities to blog. The news brought forth all kinds of advice from friends -- take Benadryl, soak in baking soda, don't scratch! But I'm still not sure what chicken pox is exactly, how it's different from shingles and why it would come three decades late.

Staying at home because of the chicken pox seems like such a wimpy excuse. It's not like the flu, which makes you tired and achy so it's okay to watch game shows all day and eat chicken noodle. But with the chicken pox, you don't fell sick, just annoyed.

I felt bad calling in sick because I was annoyed. I wanted to do something productive like read a book or do the laundry but I couldn't concentrate on a single task because every fiber of my body was busy fighting the urge to itch. And everything, from my eyelashes to the heel of my foot itched.

Thank goodness for Calamine lotion, which I purchased at the pharmacy minutes after it opened. I must have looked like a tweeker, disheveled and itchy. When I got home, I nearly drank the lotion because it seemed even my internal organs itched.

And then the bumps went away just as mysteriously as it came leaving me wondering if it was chicken pox after all. Perhaps it was just some physiological aversion to City Council meetings.