The past two weeks have been pretty brutal. Ever since coming back from vacation, I’ve been dealing with a slew of (mostly) skin-related issues. Rashes, bumps, itching, swelling… it makes it hard for me to move and do things at times. In fact, after being out for three hours today (and moving veeery slowly), I was ready to call it quits. I couldn’t take any more pit stops or detours and we had to head home.

Unfortunately it’s not great at home either – I’m applying creams and salves left and right, eating medicine, applying ice packs. A few times a day the itching gets so bad I can’t help but scratch until I’m red and likely just exacerbating the problem. It seems that as soon as the creams are applied, the soothing effect diminishes to null. What a miserable way to spend the day, always uncomfortable or hurting!

I’ve never had so much of my skin feeling so raw and tender before. It’s difficult to find any position that doesn’t hurt this or that. I’ve been waking myself up in the early morning when I subconsciously start scratching and the pain gets to me. Have you experienced this before? The best I can hope for is a quick healing process and enough distractions in the mean time to keep my mind off it.

Now even Panda is having some problems: he woke up this morning with a swollen knuckle and two giant bug bites. Is there some skin condition bug thing going on for us? It better go away soon!