Greetings from the Leper Colony

A few years ago there was a story in the news media about how a girl had leprosy, and frankly, over the course of the past few weeks, I thought they would be writing a new story about me. I had visions of being sent to the Valley of the Lepers a la Ben Hur (which reminds me, I love to watch that movie at this time of year).

I don't know what the heck was going on, but starting three weeks ago, all of the skin around my nose and mouth was super dry, itchy, and flaking off.

Don't you love it when I share all of our family's medical woes with you?

Stay tuned because tomorrow I'm going to talk about Finn's chronic constipation.

Just kidding.

Maybe. It's a big issue around here.

As I was saying. My face.

I have very sensitive skin. But this was beyond anything that has ever happened to me before. Wait. Except for when I lived in Florida and had chronic ringworm on my arm. Gross. I'll stop with that.

Anyway. The face.

I got a cold and had the normal Rudolph nose. In fact, people told me they'd never seen someone with a cold have such a red nose. I was at work and I wonder if their tissues irritated my sensitive little nose. I usually use Puffs Plus with lotion. Anything else, like the tissues my Mother buys from Amway, are horrible. In fact, I call my Mom's tissues "the tissues from Russia." No offense to the Russians.

So from the red nose, the irritation just traveled. First my lips got really chapped and then all around my mouth. I moisturized and used lip balm like a fiend to no avail. It spread to my neck, up my cheeks and even to my eyes, which swelled up and really accentuated my wrinkles.

That was upsetting. The accentuated wrinkles.

More lotion. I stopped wearing makeup. I tried not putting anything at all on my face. I went out into public and to an NHL hockey game WITHOUT MAKEUP and we were sitting right behind the glass. I think players were cringing as they skated by.

Look. These guys just caught sight of my face:


The situation was dire.

One evening my face was burning so badly I thought I was having an allergic reaction. I panicked! Was this the onset of anaphylactic shock?

What was I allergic to? Shellfish? I hadn't eaten any. Peanuts? None. Reality TV? I couldn't figure it out.

And frankly, I never did know what caused it. Finally, one day I thought, "Hmmm, I should try a homeopathic remedy on myself." When the boys are getting sick, the first thing I do is dose them with whatever remedy is appropriate. Apparently, I can't remember to do this myself.

So wouldn't you know, I used some Calendula gel and took some Calendula pellets and had relief within the hour. I continued the treatment for two days and it was obvious I was on the mend at last.

Mothers. We can't ever seem to take care of ourselves.