Shingles and Roofing Felt

I swear I just can’t let Sean Teirnan have anything to himself.

Sean’s stem cell transplant didn’t work, mine then gave in.

It was decided that Sean wouldn’t benefit from the usual second line treatment here of Velcade and Dexamethasone so he got Doxorubicin too (or PAD as it is known).  I refused Dexamethasone as an accompaniment for Velcade because it sent me round the bend and so got Doxorubicin instead.

Sean got shingles and now I have them too.  Albeit mine, at this exact moment in time cover a much, much smaller area. 

I ummed and ahhed this morning about phoning up somebody – being a bank holiday due to some wedding somewhere down south both the day unit at the Royal and our doctor’s were closed.  I thought about going to the local walk-in centre but then thought that could put others at risk from getting chicken pox from me and more importantly obviously put me at risk of picking up who knows what from the waiting area.

I thought I’d wait until this afternoon and see if the rash had changed any.  After reading the comments to yesterday’s post I realised that I probably wasn’t being a hypochondriac if I phoned the on call doctor.  So I rang at 17:20 and got an appointment for 17:50 at a local chemist a few miles away.

This caused B to drop everything, literally since he’d been on the shed roof and needed to change his trousers before he’d even consider getting in the car. However following a discussion:

P:  ‘I’ll drive myself.’

B:  ‘Do you know where you are going?’

P:  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

B: ‘You need to go down the East Lancs and blah, blah, blah.’

P:  ‘And it’s on my left.’

B:  ‘No, it’s on your right.’

P:  ‘I’ll find it.’

B:  I’ll take you.’ (After having gotten down off the shed roof.)

P:  ‘I feel well enough to drive.’

B:  ‘I don’t mind taking you.’

P:  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ (Thinking ‘Yes you drive’ and obviously showing it on my face.)

B:  ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ Dropping trackie bottoms for the second time in the garage.

P:  ‘NO, I’ll take myself.’  (The ‘bloody hell’ being the deciding factor.  I had let him drive me to town, for card for the Buddy tags, yesterday because I couldn’t be bothered and I really don’t want it becoming a regular occurrence in case I lose my confidence in driving HIS car.)

B on the shed roof hard at work chatting to one of the neighbours.  Not that I’m saying he doesn’t do much DIY type things, but one of the other neighbours said they nearly got the ‘cine camera’ out when he cut the ‘lawn’ last weekend.

So off we (me and the car) went and we had a completely uneventful trip that wouldn’t have caused B’s blood pressure to rise even a tiddly bit.

I got seen straight away and was in with the doctor all of three minutes.  ‘Let’s have a look.’ she said before I’d even sat down.  I lifted the back of my T-shirt and from about three feet away she said ‘Yes, that’s shingles. What other medications are you taking?  We don’t want to take any chances because of your lowered immunity.  Have some anti virals.’  I came out with 35 x 800mg Acyclovir tablets to take over the next seven days.

Fortunately, unlike Sean’s, it’s not painful.  It’s a bit tender to touch and I am aware of it sometimes but some of the rash is residing under the back strap of my bra so occasionally it chafes.  I love that word. Chafes, it’s so funny.  Come on admit it we all have our favourite words.  I also like to write the outline for solicitors in shorthand – Pitman 2000 – hey I could have worse quirks and foibles.  Oh, wait I probably do but they are strictly not for public consumption.