Late Friday night welts started popping up in random places on my body. I figured I must have gotten into something I was allergic to (that night we had gone all over SLC for a scavenger hunt)--so I decided to take a long hot shower to see if that would help (in hind-sight, I shouldn't have done that. Turns out hot water is BAD for hives). I went to bed, thinking I'd be fine in the morning.
Nope. I wake up, with hives all over my body. So not cool. And by all over my body, I mean ALL OVER MY BODY. I think I took this picture Saturday afternoon-before it got really bad. So if you think this picture looks slightly bad, just imagine more hives. And more swelling. :) I should have taken more pictures when it looked awful, but I just didn't care about anything during those moments.
Luckily, my hives didn't really itch too bad Saturday. But as the evening went on, my hives got worse and worse, and my hands and fingers started to SWELL. My fingers were swelling so bad it started to get painful and I had to take off my trusty CTR ring because it was looking quite awkward on my huge finger (and I was getting scared I wouldn't be able to get it off if I waited too much longer). :) Oh, and I think I conquered benadryl. I took about 6 pills throughout the day on Saturday and they didn't make me drowsy anymore! Maybe that's a bad thing to conquer... oh, and benadryl didn't help the hives. Ah well. This is when I started thinking I might need to see a doctor. It was about 1 in the morning and Kristen had gone out with friends for the night, so I decided to wait for her to get home and see what she thought. She finally got home around 1:30ish and I asked her if I should go to the ER. She agreed quite quickly, so off we went...
The ER was pretty dead when we showed. No line, and not much of a wait. They got me in pretty fast and gave me one of those cool hospital wristband things with my name on it! Wahoo! Then they set me up in a little room. I had a doc and 2 nurses helping me out. One of the nurses told me that if I wasn't LDS she would have told me to go get a 'stiff drink' after I left to try to ease my suffering. HAHA. And the other nurse told me she couldn't even look at me without being itchy...
They gave me a bunch of pills in a cup (probably an antihistamine of some sort--I can't remember) and left me alone for a while so the Doc could research hives and figure out what was wrong with me. I started to get super sleepy (must have been the drugs), and I started falling asleep sitting up-with my back against the wall. I think I probably could have slept like that all night. Then a nurse came and made me lie down on the bed and put a nice warm blanky on me. That bed was so uncomfortable... I'm pretty sure I was more comfortable sitting up and slouching like I was before. Oh well. I think I tried to sleep for about 20 more minutes and the nurse came back. She told me the doctor thought it was my antibiotic, and then started asking me some really HARD questions, like 'what did the doctor tell you to do?' I wonder if nurses get a kick out of asking drugged-up patients simple questions. It took me about 3 tries of 'ummmm what do you meannnn? and finally I spit out that I was supposed to stop taking my antibiotic, and to see a doctor, and to get some prescriptions filled. And finally I was out (after they made sure I had someone to drive me home). haha
I was zonked out all day Sunday until about 2pm (those must have been some crazy drugs!) and by the time I got going I realized that the pharmacies for the day were already closed... I think they closed at 4pm (which shows how slow it took me to do anything with my life that day).
Monday I woke up and I thought I was dying... my hives were out of control again and this time there were weird dark patches where old hives had been. To make matters worse, I had hives on the bottoms of my feet, which made it SUPER painful to walk. Torture. And the joints in my fingers and wrists were super painful too, so it basically hurt to live. It was painful to even open doors...
I went to the pharmacist and got my prescriptions, then decided to stop by a dermatologist to see if they had any openings for the day. She didn't think they did, but she went to talk to the doc and they told me to come back at 3pm that day! wahoo! I guess looking like the living dead has its rewards.
The dermatologist agreed the hives were from the antibiotic, and gave me more prescriptions to fill to try and help the hives. I think me and the Pharmacy staff became good friends that day.
So here I am. It's Wednesday, Day 5 of the hives, and I think I almost have them beat. Thankfully my work has been quite understanding and I've been able to take these past 3 days of work off with no huge problems. I'm still nervous to do anything with hot water-not gonna lie, I've only showered once since that Friday night. :) but I think I may try to be brave and shower after I finish this post. My feet dont hurt anymore, so I can walk okay. And my body is only semi-itchy today. Which means I'll try to go back to work tomorrow, and back to normal life...
Wish me luck!!
