Because that's how it always goes

I was just starting to feel like I was getting it together.  Maybe I wasn't quite on top of things, but the toilet was fixed and after getting off the plane nearly 3 months ago, I finally emptied the last of the suitcases!

Then Alex complained of a sore throat for a few days.  He never had anything other than that though, so I figured it was just a sore throat.  Then early last week, my throat started to hurt a bit.  By Tuesday afternoon, I was in bed with a fever.  Wednesday was a little better, except for being itchy behind my ears and by Thursday I mostly just had that general "too sick to be motivated but not sick enough to be in bed" feeling.  Oh, and my legs were kind of itchy and so was the small of my back.

DH had Friday off of work and we had very complicated plans to drop the kids on post for an activity, go to Ikea, return to post, and go to the Oktoberfest event the post was throwing that evening.  The fact that my legs were now covered in welts and my back and shoulders were itchy was not going to stop me from going to Ikea and getting free German food.

By Saturday, I was so regretting that.  I should have gone to the doctor on Friday.  On the weekend, my only choice was to go to the local Italian hospital.  If getting a tank of gas is complicated here, I can only imagine what a hospital visit would be like.  And really, it was a rash.  I wouldn't even go to an American ER for a rash.

By Sunday, Grace woke up with the fever and Alex began to cough.

Today, Monday, I was at the clinic first thing this morning.  By this time, I was sure that this wasn't some kind of allergic reaction to a new soap or detergent or weed in the yard.  For one thing, new itches erupted on my body bilaterally.  If one thigh itched, so did the other.  I had no idea what it was from and I didn't care.  I wanted some kind of relief.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do.  The doctor said she was fairly sure it was an external reaction to whatever virus I had and she did a strep test to be sure it wasn't strep.  One of my Facebook high school friends is a doctor now in Ohio and he said it's called a "viral exanthem".  That's an impressive word for what feels like full body poison ivy and is making me want to claw my skin off.

Rather than a miracle shot, I got a prescription for Zyrtec.  It helps the itching some, but also makes me sleepy and gives me a headache.  Grace and Alex seem to be done with fevers, although the sniffles and the cough are lingering.  So tomorrow, we make some sort of attempt to get it together and get going again.

Oh, and we spent wayyy too much money at Ikea, particularly with this crappy dollar/Euro exchange rate, but I finally have shelves over the bidet and that tacky box is gone.

Comments

[lydee]

auuugh, and rawr.

hope the itchiness goes away soon!

[Robin]

If they gave you an antihistamine to help the itching then maybe some of the poison ivy itch treatments I just researched for my dad will help.

Calamine lotion (not sure if that helped the itch or was just for drying up the oozing)

make a thick baking soda paste (just the powder & water)

I also picked up Benadryl cream, Gold Bond medicated anti-itch, and a hydrocortizone anti-itch cream. I think the Gold Bond helped the most but he has used all of them.

One site where users posted their own remedies also had several people recommending using a blow dryer on the sores to "itch" them without scratching. They said you have to keep the dryer moving to prevent burning, but that the heat released the histamines in the sores & it itched more then started to feel like they were scratching them. Some people reported 6-10 hours of itch relief from that method.

[Becca]

Thanks, Robin! It's getting much better, but I think I'll pick up some Gold
Bond anyway. The hydracortisone creams have helped some, too. I don't have
a hair dryer, but that might be worth buying one for!

Becca

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 12:14 AM, wrote:

[Cecilia]

something I found helped A Lot when my daughter had chicken pox is an epsom salts bath.

[angelarae]

Sorry you are sick. I hope everyone feels better very soon. It can really suck to be sick in a foreign country.
Ang