In fact, I have spent the majority of February sitting at home doing absolutely nothing. That thing I did to my hand several weeks ago ended up becoming a really inconvenient, life stalling problem. This is what happened. It's cold out, right? When it gets cold, I dry out (like a lot of people). Well, for some reason I developed a particularly dry patch of skin in between the index and middle finger of my right hand, maybe from doing a lot of cooking or being out in the wet, cold weather. I dunno. I didn't think too much about it, applied some moisturizer and thought that was that. Then I woke myself up one night scratching at this spot. So, I picked up some Cortisone cream at the pharmacy, lathered it on and we went on to Heidelberg to take those shots I put up a couple weeks ago. By the time we came home it was clear that the Cortisone cream and I didn't get along. I won't go into the graphic details, but let's just say I kinda felt like a leper. It was a rather nasty case of contact dermatitis. It was painful and it itched like crazy. I couldn't get my hand wet, I couldn't expose it to the cold, and I couldn't move my fingers without aggravating it further. So, I couldn't use a camera, ride my bike (not even on a trainer), go outside, type, use a pen, cut my food, zip my coat, carry anything, etc. Taking a shower was a complicated feat of acrobatics. At first I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but dermatitis takes a really long time to heal and this went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. I've never had something like this happen before. Even my worst bike wreck injuries (which, thankfully, haven't been too serious) have healed faster than this. The only thing that you can do is keep it moisturized and covered, take antihistamines, and wait. And wait. So, I dug out (with my left hand) a spare box of cotton gloves I bought back in the day when I worked with old documents and have been sporting one a la Michael Jackson for the majority of the month. So embarrassing. Now, being an introvert, having to spend a long period of time shut up in the house isn't a complete death sentence. But, even I have my limits. Not being able to do anything easily made it especially frustrating. When I became completely unhinged last weekend over a problem with GoDaddy, I knew I was in trouble. Mercifully, it has finally healed up to the point I can use my hand again. I still have to wear the glove for a little bit longer to prevent a relapse, but I think I'm finally on the other side. Sheesh.
Kids, the moral of the story is, TAKE CARE OF YOUR SKIN!
One the bright side, if something like that has to happen at least it happened when we didn't have any significant plans. I had hoped to spend the month doing landscapes and cityscapes, but it's no huge tragedy that I couldn't. Those places will still be there. Also, it gave me a lot of time to read, and so I decided to revisit the works of J.R.R Tolkien. Immersing myself back in my favorite mythical world has been really nice and may have kept me from going completely mental. It has been quite a while since I've read all the books. Of course, that led to re-watching all of the films...I guess there are worst ways to spend a convalescence.
 |
| While I still can't go outside, I can use a camera again. Good chance to experiment with still lifes. |
Right. One more weekend to go then back at it. Good thing too, we's getting rather flabby, Precious.
No comments:
Post a Comment