Retitled: I Cannot Be Held Responsible For What I Say When I'm Feverish And Channeling Chatty Cathy

I feel:: extremely weird and feverish

I think I'm coming down with something, which is great since the start of the school semester is right around the corner. It feels like I'm coming down with Shingles again.

Let me back up a bit. Firstly, most anyone who knows me knows that I have scoliosis, but unless you've been around me any significant amount of time, you've never seen the troubles I have with my hips because the curvature of my spine puts my pelvis off kilter. One side is higher than the other, therefore, one leg is longer than the other. (I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What does Shingles have to do with Scoliosis other than they're both "S" words?" I'm fixin' to tell you.) Ok, whenever I am about to have pain with my hips (it's usually on the right side), my skin in that area starts to feel extremely tender. Almost like a bad sunburn. What's funny about this is that it usually only happens on my right side: on my right ass cheek-that's where it starts. The usual way I notice this is because toilet seats are usually very cold no matter what time of year. I guess it's like my body letting me know that the pain is in the mail. Well, like I said, it's usually only on my right side and starts at my right ass cheek. Then, the pain works it's way to my hip and eventually all the way down my leg. Sometimes, it gets so bad that I can't stand on it and my right leg has gone out from under me before. The most recent time I can remember is last semester at school trying to climb the stairs to go to class when my leg just wouldn't support me. Only very rarely does it ever happen on my left side.

Well,the other day, I noticed (via the temperature of the toilet seat again) that my skin was really tender. Only this time it was the left side. So, ever since I've been waiting for the pain to go down my leg, but it never did. It migrated up to my torso. To exactly the place where I had Shingles the last time. The entire right side of my torso, from the midline of my stomach around to my spine, feels like I fell asleep under a sunlamp. Today, the flu-ish symptoms started. It was hard to distinguish that particular ache from the other body aches I have been feeling for the past two weeks since David died. But this is like a "run over by a truck" feeling. For the past several hours, I've also had a low-grade fever, which feels like it's getting worse because I'm starting to sweat, despite the fact that the air conditioner is set on 75 degrees and the ceiling fan is on high. I slept all day today. I think I was only awake for maybe two hours.

This last time I got up I was feeling pretty good and was even wondering if I would be able to get any sleep tonight since I slept all day, but now, after being up and moving around the house for the last 4 hours, I feel like I could fall into bed and never move again.

God, I don't want Shingles again. Last time I had them, I had to drop out of school and it took my immune system at least 6 months to recover from it. Even if it is the flu, that would still suck because VAST is doing a show here in LR at Juanita's on Wednesday night and I already have a ticket for it.

The good news is that I've been in contact with a friend of mine who put himself in rehab six months ago. The last time I talked to him, he said he was going to Alaska to try and get a job on one of those crab boats. I thought I'd never see him again. I got an email from him several weeks ago and he told me where he was and that he had put himself in rehab. I couldn't call him, but I wrote him. On Monday, he called me! I also got to talk to him for a bit tonight and he said that he would call me again on Tuesday. Wow, I've missed him so much. And I can't say that I'm not glad that he's not in Alaska trying not to fall off of a crab boat. I'm so happy that he had the strength to put himself into rehab. I have not known very many people who have done that. Usually, their family and/or friends force them to go into rehab, or they have a near-death experience and wind up in rehab that way.

I'm like Chatty Cathy With A Fever tonight. If Chatty Cathy could sweat like a whore in church.

Other than that, I've bought some new pens and mechanical pencils for school which I'm way to excited about. They're decorative.