What the Shingles!

On Tuesday evening I went to scratch my back and felt what appeared to be a few raised/bumpy spots.  I thought it was a little strange, but didn't give it much more thought.  Yesterday my back started itching again in the same spot and this time it felt like the spots were bigger, or more pronounced.  When I looked in the mirror it looked as though I had some sort of rash or hives (yuck!) The skin was red, felt warm to the touch and just didn't look good. 

When I got in the office this morning I called and spoke with Dr. Londer's assistant Kate, and she suggested I stop in after work so a Nurse Practitioner could take a look.  I was definitely surprised when she said I had Shingles!  Shingles?!  How is this possible?  Apparently a person who has had Chicken Pox as a child is more susceptible to Shingles as an adult, and is also more susceptible when their immune system has been compromised due to chemotherapy.  Check and check!  That'd be a double whammy for this gal.  I guess the good news is that you only typically get Shingles once in a lifetime.   The NP eventually sent me on my way, sending a prescription over to Walgreens for me to pick up on my way home.  Before I left I did ask her if it was contagious and her answer is that it is if the other person hasn't had Chicken Pox before or hasn't received the vaccination.   This is also assuming that they're touching my back in the spot where the shingles are and then touching their skin.  Being that I always keep that part of my back covered up, I'm not really seeing an issue here.  Ya know...a person just almost has to laugh at this point.  Cancer and now Shingles - I'm on a roll!  Both can go away any time.  No...really though!  GOOOOO AWAYYYYYY.

Check out the ginormous pills I was prescribed to hopefully cure these lovely red itchy Shingles of mine.  I popped the first one this evening, and thankfully it went right down the hatch! ...No gagging involved.  If you would have told me I'd be swallowing these horse pills in my teens, I would have looked at you like you had just grown a third eye.  It just wouldn't have happened.  I had such a huge fear of choking on pills of any kind regardless of their size that I'd go as far as to either smash them up so they were teeny tiny or melt them in a cup with juice (disgusting...I know).  My mom used to always laugh reminding me that I swallow bigger pieces of food so why be so worried?  Thankfully that fear is no more.

On to other news...
I called the U of M to see what the deal was with scheduling appointments and what not, and as it turns out, the doctors spoke with each other and nobody else so no one at the U knew to call me.  Isn't that nice?  I guess it's a good thing my impatient self made the call to them then isn't it?  Anyways, it sounds like my weeks worth of testing is going to get started next Wednesday (the 16th) at 11 AM.  I'm excited to get this show on the road but I'm also nervous especially after they told me I'd be getting another bone marrow biopsy done.  I understand where they're coming from. They need to run all these tests whether I've had them done previously or not because they need a baseline to go off of.  Apparently they could tell I had so much fun the first time around that they'd let me do it again.  Once all the testing is completed I'll sit down with Dr. McClune and he'll run through the results, and the next steps along the way.  I guess it's time to buckle our seat belts!  Things could get very interesting.