American Pie: Not All The Shingles Are On The Roof
...Now, superimposed on the burn of the rash, I was experiencing strange new sensations: shooting pains and other sensations that beggar description. I took these experiences to indicate either that my nerves were healing or being destroyed, and at this point I didn’t care which. Was I ever going to feel well again?..,
John Merchant goes through the profound agonies enforced upon him by a bout of shingles. Lucky are we that the pain did not diminish his writing abilities.
To read more of John's columns please click on http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=john+merchant
I’m just getting through a bout with herpes zoster virus, the Sunday name for the other kind of shingles. Well, not quite through, but I see light at the end of a miserable tunnel and hope it’s not a train coming in the other direction. For some reason, I never thought I would get shingles, possibly because I don’t sicken with much of anything. But medically I’m a classic case - I had chickenpox as a child, and I’m over 60, when, so I’m told, immune systems aren’t as good as they were.
The virus, related to chicken pox, can linger in the body for a lifetime, and for reasons that are not well understood, can reactivate. In my case the attack started as a pain in my hip that I thought was just another symptom of the osteoarthritis that has already required two knee replacements. Sleeping with a pillow between my knees didn’t help, and I started to think seriously that a hip replacement was in my future.
A couple of days later my wife remarked on a rash in the small of my back. I wasn’t concerned because I often develop rashes in hot, humid weather, and we were experiencing unseasonably high temperatures and dripping humidity. Two days further on, the rash had spread to the top of my left thigh and onto my belly, and the pale pink of before had changed to an angry, deep red.
By now, the pain was keeping me awake at night and I knew I had shingles. A quick search on my computer told me more than I wanted to know. The rash would develop into blisters that would scab over a period of 10 to 12 days, and I would experience pain and discomfort for another 20 or so, and some symptoms perhaps forever!
I was not dismayed, believing that there would be drugs to deal with the pain and to bolster my immune system. My doctor confirmed my diagnosis and the computer prognosis, and was suitably impressed with my symptoms. She said that if she had a camera she would have taken a picture. Why did that make me feel better?
Anyone who knows my writing will also know my feelings about modern medicine – the less the better. But feeling ill and in pain will erode the strongest of convictions, so, with some misgivings, I gratefully accepted the prescriptions for Vicodin pain medication and an anti-bacteria drug to prevent secondary infections. I was directed to take the pain medication every 6 hours.
After the fourth dose, I needed only to blink my eyes and the room went whirling around. I spent the next 12 hours completely immobile. Meanwhile, the anti-bacteria drug was playing havoc with my intestinal tract, but I thought I knew how to deal with that from previous experience – lots of liquids, a handful of raisins and plenty of yoghurt to replace the good bacteria in my intestines that had been killed.
But the symptoms refused to yield to my previously successful home remedies. So now I had pain on the outside and on the inside of my abdomen, and it was hard to separate the two. It occurred to me to wonder why the Samurai would ever choose to kill themselves by falling on their swords.
A second visit to my doctor yielded the theory that it was the Tylenol in the Vicodin that was responsible for my vertigo, and a new pain medication, Gabapentin was prescribed. Gabapentin is normally administered to diabetic patients who suffer the burning pains of neuropathy in their feet. Well, the drug wasn’t smart enough to know that my feet were fine and that it should apply its balm to my abdomen and back, so after a couple of days the pain was undiminished, but it was becoming difficult to stay awake during the day.
By this time the blisters had turned into nasty looking, crusty scabs that were big enough to snag my clothing. I resorted to good old aspirin for the pain, and to wearing as little clothing as possible, making sure that my wife was the one to answer the doorbell. The aspirin helped a bit, but I resisted taking it too often in case it added complications to my already compromised digestive tract.
Now, superimposed on the burn of the rash, I was experiencing strange new sensations: shooting pains and other sensations that beggar description. I took these experiences to indicate either that my nerves were healing or being destroyed, and at this point I didn’t care which. Was I ever going to feel well again?
Two and a half weeks after the first signs had appeared I felt that I was turning a corner. My angry bowels had calmed down after the drug ran out, and the flu-like symptoms I had experienced during the first ten days had faded. The skin pain had diminished to the extent that I could bear to touch the affected areas. I started to think about self-medication, my usual recourse, which I took to be a good sign. Three weeks later the light at the end of the tunnel is bright enough to read by, and I haven’t heard the clickety clack of wheels along the track, so I guess I’m OK.
# # #
