battling scabies
So, as seeped out of the mess that was Friday night's drunken rant, i have - or had - scabies.
It's somewhat annoying that the thing i self-diagnosed as having before i visited the hospital over six weeks ago ultimately turned out to be the thing. It could've saved over a month of intense discomfort if they'd just believed me then.
Which isn't to say that the discomfort is entirely over.
In true East Asian fashion, the doc prescribed me just about every possible treatment available. That first week i was taking four different pills and had two different creams. This week it was down to two pills and an additional cream plus finishing off the two i still had left over from last time. If there is a single live scabie left on me, it's a fucking monster scabie wearing a +5 cloak of poison resistance.
But it isn't just your body you have to worry about with this shit. You also have to quarantine all your clothes, towels and bedsheets for 72 hours, or wash them all in hot water. Which is not really doable for me because i only have enough clothes to wear exactly the number of days in the work week, only one bedsheet, and so on. Not to mention my washing machine only does cold washes and - after visiting the laundromat - i discovered that no washing machines at all in Taiwan do a hot wash. So instead i put everything in the dryer on hot, and tried to implement a three-day sheet rotation that included several pillow cases laid out in a row and my sleeping bag.
Two weeks later, i think i have cycled around my clothes enough and taken them to the laundromat for that 20 minutes hot dryer blast enough times to have killed whatever mites and eggs might still have been hiding in there.
But the carcasses of the little shits, and their eggs, they remain burrowed inside your body for weeks, itching and causing outbreaks.
And so for that first week, you're not sure if you got everything, because it's still itchy all over the place. It seems to get better for a bit, then it itches again. Every random tiny itch that 6 months ago i would've completely ignored now feels like the threat of another infestation coming on.
It's fucking frustrating, and it's only now - 12 days after i started treatment - that i am starting to believe that perhaps finally i could be recovering.
For sure, on day one after taking the ivermectin and slathering on the overnight cream, almost all of the constant itch cleared up. The small pimple-like outbreaks all over my body were gone almost immediately too. But the large, red insect-bite looking bumps remained. There are still dozens on my butt, and several round my waist, and on my legs. My elbows look like they're covered in warts. I think this is the beginning of the end, though. The itching, which has reduced to occasional (but still annoying) bursts here and there, seems to be getting less each day. I have been inspecting my skin like a nutcase, and - touch wood - although there seemed to be a couple new spots last week, this week i haven't seen any new eruptions. Please, God, please let this be over. I wouldn't wish this shit on anyone. It's the worst.
Now, i will say, about a month ago in Geneva i started having a suspicion that i actually had two different overlapping skin conditions. The one was mostly around my butt, my waist, legs etc and featured infernal itching, pimples and large eruptions. That one looks to have been scabies and now inshallah the little fuckers are gone. But there is another thing that has been causing me trouble very specifically since i was traveling in Colombia, and that's more of a painful rash that seems to primarily be centered around my neck.
I did suffer some very, very bad sunburn when i was out there. And since that one bad sunburn incident, it feels like my neck never really recovered. It comes and goes in waves - sometimes it's fine, but other times the skin gets hot and painful and flares up into a very visible red rash across my shoulders and neckline. It looks more like rosacea or another chronic skin condition than the problems i was having below the neck.
I'm not sure if perhaps i have developed some kind of allergy or skin sensitivity, or more worrying is maybe there is some long-term damage that could lead to cancer. Goddamnit i don't want fucking cancer. My mom died of it, and all four of my grandparents, i think. My aunt on my dad's side too. It's deep in my genes, and just like all those relatives, i also like to spend my days out in the sun. I know it'll come for me eventually, but i kinda hoped i'd have a bit longer.
I'm probably overly paranoid. I figure i need to give my body a few more weeks for all the scabies damage to recover. I still have a couple steroid creams that i will use whatever is left over carefully on my neck when my body's immune system isn't spending all of its energy fighting a goddamn bug infestation. And then we'll see how i feel. If i need any more help.
Man, getting old is some bullshit. I fucking hate that my body is from this point forth just progressively getting more and more decrepit.
But, eh, what can you do?
This is another weekend where i am just letting myself relax in my apartment, not going on any adventures, not trying to live some wild life. I think i need it. I haven't felt 100% for so long.
Good news i suppose is that i am making progress, i think. Aside from my skin problems, i've started to find some of the things i like in Taipei, like that nearby unpretentious 燒烤 BBQ place, which will make after work drinks a joy. Fresh baguette from Carrefour for a weekend treat. My local noodle stand at home. The Hong Kong noodle joint near work. That banging Sichuan pepper hot sauce. Today i bought a standing fan, so hopefully i can quit using the air conditioning, especially now that the itch is subsiding, which was my main reason for blasting it ever since i got back from Europe. And work is going good too. I think i am performing at least at the level they expect, hopefully higher. I'm doing stuff that's technically interesting and politically meaningful. It's true that my whole life for the past 3 weeks has just been apartment, office, doctor, grocery store, apartment again... but it's okay.
It's all okay.
It's somewhat annoying that the thing i self-diagnosed as having before i visited the hospital over six weeks ago ultimately turned out to be the thing. It could've saved over a month of intense discomfort if they'd just believed me then.
Which isn't to say that the discomfort is entirely over.
In true East Asian fashion, the doc prescribed me just about every possible treatment available. That first week i was taking four different pills and had two different creams. This week it was down to two pills and an additional cream plus finishing off the two i still had left over from last time. If there is a single live scabie left on me, it's a fucking monster scabie wearing a +5 cloak of poison resistance.
But it isn't just your body you have to worry about with this shit. You also have to quarantine all your clothes, towels and bedsheets for 72 hours, or wash them all in hot water. Which is not really doable for me because i only have enough clothes to wear exactly the number of days in the work week, only one bedsheet, and so on. Not to mention my washing machine only does cold washes and - after visiting the laundromat - i discovered that no washing machines at all in Taiwan do a hot wash. So instead i put everything in the dryer on hot, and tried to implement a three-day sheet rotation that included several pillow cases laid out in a row and my sleeping bag.
Two weeks later, i think i have cycled around my clothes enough and taken them to the laundromat for that 20 minutes hot dryer blast enough times to have killed whatever mites and eggs might still have been hiding in there.
But the carcasses of the little shits, and their eggs, they remain burrowed inside your body for weeks, itching and causing outbreaks.
And so for that first week, you're not sure if you got everything, because it's still itchy all over the place. It seems to get better for a bit, then it itches again. Every random tiny itch that 6 months ago i would've completely ignored now feels like the threat of another infestation coming on.
It's fucking frustrating, and it's only now - 12 days after i started treatment - that i am starting to believe that perhaps finally i could be recovering.
For sure, on day one after taking the ivermectin and slathering on the overnight cream, almost all of the constant itch cleared up. The small pimple-like outbreaks all over my body were gone almost immediately too. But the large, red insect-bite looking bumps remained. There are still dozens on my butt, and several round my waist, and on my legs. My elbows look like they're covered in warts. I think this is the beginning of the end, though. The itching, which has reduced to occasional (but still annoying) bursts here and there, seems to be getting less each day. I have been inspecting my skin like a nutcase, and - touch wood - although there seemed to be a couple new spots last week, this week i haven't seen any new eruptions. Please, God, please let this be over. I wouldn't wish this shit on anyone. It's the worst.
Now, i will say, about a month ago in Geneva i started having a suspicion that i actually had two different overlapping skin conditions. The one was mostly around my butt, my waist, legs etc and featured infernal itching, pimples and large eruptions. That one looks to have been scabies and now inshallah the little fuckers are gone. But there is another thing that has been causing me trouble very specifically since i was traveling in Colombia, and that's more of a painful rash that seems to primarily be centered around my neck.
I did suffer some very, very bad sunburn when i was out there. And since that one bad sunburn incident, it feels like my neck never really recovered. It comes and goes in waves - sometimes it's fine, but other times the skin gets hot and painful and flares up into a very visible red rash across my shoulders and neckline. It looks more like rosacea or another chronic skin condition than the problems i was having below the neck.
I'm not sure if perhaps i have developed some kind of allergy or skin sensitivity, or more worrying is maybe there is some long-term damage that could lead to cancer. Goddamnit i don't want fucking cancer. My mom died of it, and all four of my grandparents, i think. My aunt on my dad's side too. It's deep in my genes, and just like all those relatives, i also like to spend my days out in the sun. I know it'll come for me eventually, but i kinda hoped i'd have a bit longer.
I'm probably overly paranoid. I figure i need to give my body a few more weeks for all the scabies damage to recover. I still have a couple steroid creams that i will use whatever is left over carefully on my neck when my body's immune system isn't spending all of its energy fighting a goddamn bug infestation. And then we'll see how i feel. If i need any more help.
Man, getting old is some bullshit. I fucking hate that my body is from this point forth just progressively getting more and more decrepit.
But, eh, what can you do?
This is another weekend where i am just letting myself relax in my apartment, not going on any adventures, not trying to live some wild life. I think i need it. I haven't felt 100% for so long.
Good news i suppose is that i am making progress, i think. Aside from my skin problems, i've started to find some of the things i like in Taipei, like that nearby unpretentious 燒烤 BBQ place, which will make after work drinks a joy. Fresh baguette from Carrefour for a weekend treat. My local noodle stand at home. The Hong Kong noodle joint near work. That banging Sichuan pepper hot sauce. Today i bought a standing fan, so hopefully i can quit using the air conditioning, especially now that the itch is subsiding, which was my main reason for blasting it ever since i got back from Europe. And work is going good too. I think i am performing at least at the level they expect, hopefully higher. I'm doing stuff that's technically interesting and politically meaningful. It's true that my whole life for the past 3 weeks has just been apartment, office, doctor, grocery store, apartment again... but it's okay.
It's all okay.