That’s what I’m telling people anyway. During the Habitat for Humanity trip one month ago, I got a rosy sunburn on my forearms, which somehow morphed into hives. Since then, these sneaky bumps rotate from my arms, to legs, to shoulders, to back. They appear around 7 p.m. each night and linger for 20 minutes. At first I thought they would go away. When they didn’t, the combination of Internet ideas and my own paranoia came up with multiple possibilities for the problem.
In my online research I found MedicineNet.com, which says one characteristic of hives is their tendency to change size rapidly and to move around. They will disappear from one place and reappear in another, often in a matter of hours.
Yep, that sounds about right.
According to the Web, causes for hives include certain foods, such as chocolate (that better not be the problem). Sometimes hives are caused by exercise, cold, water, sunlight, insect bites and war zones. However, there is no known cause for ordinary hives.
Great.
According to my imagination, I got fleas from my dog (who doesn’t even have fleas); I was allergic to Texas and its sun, or I got them from the three-decade old dust I inhaled while cleaning the Habitat ReStore warehouse.
For weeks, I have monitored what I am eating, noted my stress level and my caffeine consumption. (If the problem turns out to be the caffeine, I don’t know what I will do). I tried over the counter allergy medication, at home remedies and nothing helped.
I had had enough, so I went to the walk-in clinic.
After being stared at by really sick people wearing masks to contain their germs, seeing a child fall off of a chair and watching a nearly full episode of LIVE! with Regis & Kelly, a nurse called my name.
I weighed in, got my vitals checked and then spent about five minutes with a doctor who told me that Texas did not make me sick and there’s no cure for hives. He said he had no idea what’s causing the problem and if I didn’t have anything to show him, I could go home.
Hmmm…still broken. Strange.
I could have skipped the trip to the clinic because, luckily, my in-laws are nurses. So when they returned home from a trip, I quizzed them.
Right away they both said it sounds like a certain type of virus, which they named and I can’t remember. Turns out, they know someone who currently has the same thing. They said it lasts about six weeks and then disappears.
Do you know what that means? It means I’m not crazy. It means there is a concrete reason for these ridiculous, devious bumps that come and go as they please. And, it means that in about a week, I should be back to normal.
In that case, I’ll have another cappuccino smoothie please. And I might avoid Texas for a while.