not on my roof

Well.

I appear to be elderly.

I thought I had at least a few more years before this happened. I am, after all, only 35.

But today I was diagnosed with shingles. Fun. I thought the irritation in my armpit was from the elastic around the sleeves of the cute top I wore last Thursday. Then when it appeared on my arm I assumed it was from the same thing.

I thought the aches and pains were completely unrelated. I told my husband that I kept expecting to come down with a fever because of the aching. But the fever never came.

But then the rash on my arm seemed to spread a bit. And today it was on my chest. So I called the doctor. By some miracle I was sitting face to face with him within the hour.

The doctor took one look at it and said it looked like shingles. But that I was a little young to get shingles. But after more discussion of my symptoms he declared that yes, indeed, it must be shingles.

Nice.

Shingles occur when a person who has had the chicken pox before becomes stressed or immune depressed, and the virus, which has been lying dormant in the nerves ever since the pox, gets activated. Usually shingles occur in people over 50.

And although I can't give someone else shingles, I can give someone who hasn't had the chicken pox or the vaccine the pox.

Someone like my daughter. Or my husband.

Or the 80 or so kids I work with at the preschool.

Actually, the doctor said that it's unlikely to spread because I don't have the cough and such that's associated with chicken pox, plus the rash is (at least so far) easily covered with clothes.

Between the shingles and my hurt foot? Let's just get me a walker and get it over with, shall we?

Queen of Horror

In the dark of night a groan rises from the blackness. A small form stumbles its way down the hallway of the sleeping house, emitting a low growling sound. It stops beside the bed where two bodies lay tangled in the sheets, sleeping, unaware of the heat radiating from the sinister presence mere inches away from them.

And thus begins the new movie Queen of Horror, which is sure to have you shaking in your seats and hiding your face behind your hands as scene after scene of horror unfolds: midnight awakenings; a fever; a child lying prone in front of Yo Gabba Gabba, her parents powerless to change the channel; the possibility of staying home from school. Will the child manage to get well before the parents have to take her to the scariest place of all - The Doctor's Office???

Parents everywhere are running for cover, but not before rating Queen of Horror as the scariest film they've seen since The Blair Witch Project (which, come to think of it, was the last horror movie they saw before becoming parents)

*****
This post has been brought to you by Monday Missions. This Monday's Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the style of a Horror Movie Summary. If you do, please put a link to your post in the widget below.

And yes, The May Queen was down with a fever this weekend, but we are hopeful that tomorrow she'll be off to school!



November is a new month, chock full of new Missions! Your missions, should you choose to accept them, are to write posts in the style of:
11/3 - An ad posted in the grocery store. (You know the type... someone is selling something or looking for something and there's a bunch of little slips to tear off at the bottom with a phone number)
11/10 - A "congratulations! you just won!" letter/e-mail
11/17 - CD liner notes
11/24 - A bill

Also, I am declaring December a nostalgic month. Let me know what your favorite past mission was (one you want to try again, or one you missed and wish you had done) and I'll resurrect a month's worth of past missions. (I think that I've gone back and labeled all my Monday Missions if you want to go back and browse through them)