four trips to walgreens

God really has a sense of humor and I'm reaaally glad that laughter is the best medicine. This weekend was truly a comedy of errors.

Saturday late morning: I ran 8 miles in the heat of the day (90+ degrees). No clouds. No breeze. No sunscreen. Dumb idea. It was the neighborhood-wide yard sale Saturday, so everyone had a lot of signs up in yards. I ran past one that just said "Baby Sale #300 Peachtree." Was someone tired of being a parent and just decided to sell their baby? I felt they needed to be a little more specific in their signage...obviously they weren't selling their babies. I decided to loop back around after grabbing my camera to take a picture. It was dead when I tried to turn it on. I looped back around and grabbed my cell phone, but rather and go back to the original sign, I just ran up to their house. Well, you guessed it...it was yard stroller guy. I guess he got sick of walking around his yard in his expensive jogging stroller, and just got rid of the baby AND the stroller. I got caught taking the picture of the silly sign. I just smiled and waved at yard stroller guy and jogged on. Here's the picture.


Saturday afternoon: Since I was a sweaty beast, I decided to just lay on my living room floor, drink a bunch of water, and watch a movie to cool off. Dumb idea. I started to get VERY itchy. I didn't think anything of it...just thought it was the sweat. I mowed my front yard, went to the store, made some food for some friends who just had a baby, dropped the food off, and came home to shower.

Early Saturday evening: Still itchy. I went to Walgreens to find some relief or my raging sunburn. Showered again and used the lotion...still itchy. I went back to Walgreens and picked up some Wali-dryl. Still itchy. Go BACK to Walgreens. The brain trust that is the pharmacist says I have a heat rash and tells me to buy some mild lotion and stay cool. Ok...still itchy. Watched a documentary on the Badwater ultramarathon called "Running on the Sun." Good flick...never seen so many disgusting runner feet in my life.

Sunday morning: Get up and go to church....still itchy. I went out for breakfast with some friends and came home. However, as we opened the door we were greeted with an overpowering smell of burning plastic. We looked like a bunch of morons sniffing around the house, yelling "I think it smells worse in here!" We finally narrowed it down the air conditioner because it was REALLY starting to get warm in the house. After calling one of my firefighter friends (Craig) and his wife (Diana) to come over and make sure that, in fact, my house was not going to burn down, we determined that the problem was that there was about four inches of ice caked on my A-coil in the basement furnace unit. Niiiiice. Now I have no air conditioning. We turned the unit off and used my only fan to try to speed up the melting process so it can get fixed. Meanwhile, it's 95 degrees outside.

Sunday afternoon: So, two of my friends and I went to the mall to cool off and get a wedding gift for my boss. One of the gals, Bri, is studying to be a nurse, took a look at the spots I have been scratching on my arms and legs. She tells me I HAVE POISON IVY!!!! So, I make my third trip to Walgreens to pick up some poison ivy cream and some generic Claritin. Still itchy. If you've never had it, this is what it feels like....You literally want to scratch ALL your skin off until you reach the bone. Just talking/typing about it makes me want to scratch. Good thing I bite my nails...HAH!!!! Take THAT all you people who lecture me about biting my nails. If I had nails, my arms and legs would probably be full of festering, weeping, pussy sores! Here's a visual for you http://www.poison-ivy.org/rash/left-arm.jpg. This is NOT my arm. It's just an example of what would happen if I actually had nails. I didn't post the picture because I didn't want to look at the nasty thing every time I open my blog page...you'll understand if you are a brave soul and take a gander at the site. Then I decided to go ahead and mow my backyard, because, what the heck, I already had poison ivy...right?

Sunday evening: I went to a church meeting...still itchy. Then I went out with some friends...still itchy. I went home to a sauna of a house, put some pj's on, and drove over to a neighbor's house to spend the night...in their nice air conditioned house. Craig called me back because Diana told him I was getting worse. He told me to go the emergency room...it was likely in my blood stream and would get into my eyes and on my face. OH HECK NO!!!! I got in the car and drove to their house because Diana (bless her ever lovin' gigantic heart) offered to sit with me in the emergency room. The PA gave me a steroid injection in the buttocks ("I got shot in the buttocks.").


I asked her if my right butt cheek would get REALLY pissed off at my left butt cheek and start a fight. Would my right cheek get really ripped by tomorrow morning? I don't think she was amused. They prescribed some oral steroids (which required yet another trip to Walgreens) and told me:
a. Don't get hot.*
b. Don't get sweaty.*
b. Stay in air conditioned areas.*
c. Don't exercise.
d. Take three Benadryl a day plus a Claritin.**
e. Take ALL of the steroids as directed or it will come back...and come back with a vengeance.
Now, being the psycho runner that I am, I tried to reason with her, find a loop hole, make a deal. She just said, "You can run and swim. Just know that you will get poison ivy blisters in all the places that you have friction. You can swim, but you will be swimming in chemicals and other people's bacteria with open sores. Buuuuttt, you just do what you want." I like her. She tells it how it is. She doesn't sugar coat it.

This craziness is supposed to last 2 weeks. I am registered to run in the Route 66 10k on Saturday. I'm going to try to do it, if I promise to speed home and jump into a cold shower afterward, I am thinking I'll be okay. I'm NOT letting the last 8 weeks of training go to waste. However, I'm also thinking this is God's way of forcing my hand and making me rest. So, I'm going to try to take the next several days off and stave off the puss-filled and weepy grossness.


*Did I mention that I don't have air conditioning? *!@#! Ironic...
**Benadryl knocks me OUT. Did I mention that I am teaching a school full of middle school and high school alternative education students for the summer? I am going to have an interesting two weeks.