So... I have the plague.

It's actually The Plague: Reloaded, to be honest. Hmm... let's be less vague (and ixnay the bad movie references.).

So the skin on my lower back, in a strip that goes from my spine to my belly button on the left side only, had been sensative, starting at Wondercon. Thinking nothing of it, as I get sensative patches every now and again, I ignored it. But it kept getting worse, till it was pretty painful, like a really bad sunburn. But only on the left side of my abdominal and back region.

And then little blisters started forming.

I finally went to the doctor today, and confirmed my suspisions, though only vaguely.

I have shingles.

"Huh?" I hear you say. Okay, let me explain. Shingles are chicken pox: redux. Basically, once you recover from chicken pox, the virus actually never leaves your body. It goes dormant, and basically sits in your spinal fluid as a pretty non-threatening little bug. But if you're immune system gets weakened at all, it takes advantage of the thinning of the guard, and reactivates, only this time, in the form of shingles. Basically, the disease travels along a nerve bundle along one side, reaches the surface, and then turns into happy blisters that eventually rupture, seep, and then heal. And all the while, there is pain. Lots of pain. Though I'm pretty lucky. I have a mild case only.

You can see some gruesome pictures if you do an image search for 'shingles' on Google. It's not pretty.

Mine don't look that bad, but the doctor says she's never seen it like I have it and that I have all the rest of the symptoms. So I now have to take a freaking HUGE pill (it's blue, haha), that I swear is the size of my thumb from the tip to the first joint, 800mg. That's a large pill. Thankfully, my pain is ignorable, if obnoxious occasionally.

So, I have the plague. But I'll survive. And I'll work too, just in really loose clothing that won't irritate my poor, sore skin.

Thus, the news of Erin.