I’m currently revising and updating my book for a new edition. This book will have a new title and possibly a new cover design. I have given this my full priority and so my blog has not had my attention. Don’t despair! I’m bringing blogs from the past. This one is from 2016.*

I’m pretty much over the fever, the headaches, and muscle aches. I still have the itchy, blotchy red rash on my back and side. The intermittent slashing, nerve pain has stayed with me.
I have shingles, a disease caused by the chicken pox virus, and I’ve lived in my pajamas for three weeks.

“Aren’t you glad you don’t have to go to work?” my husband says, hoping to cheer me up. He reminds me of the good aspect of not having a job. I admit, I’m free of the guilt that comes with letting your boss and co-workers down because of drawn-out illness.

‘Yes, Jerry,” I say. “That’s one good thing.”

My doctor prescribed medication. I don’t think it helps.

I’ve canceled my life until I feel better. When you have pain, you don’t feel like moving. I spend my days staring at endless TV programs. In my other life, the one where I don’t have shingles and pain, I don’t watch TV during the day. Well, maybe the news. But that’s all. Now I focus on TV commercials. Did you know? My Pillow has a special patented interlocking fill that helps support your spine’s alignment. Most pillows are flat and cause you to fold over your pillow and slug it with your fist in your angry attempt to make it more comfortable. Real people explain how My Pillow has changed their lives. …”The interlocking fill gave me such a good night’s sleep I never wanted to shoplift or do drugs again.”

I read books when commercials no longer hold my fascination. I’ve read all the memoirs Alexandra Fuller has written.
All three books plopped me into Africa where Fuller’s family sips cocktails and the starry night boils with the sounds of insects and frogs and baboons. Six-foot monitor lizards wander into their home after the rains wash them up to the front door.
I don’t like the fact the family had a lot of emotional pain, but Fuller’s divorce takes my mind off the physical pain I’m dealing with. I analyze her marriage and what went wrong. I have the time to do this.
The beauty of the African landscape transports my mind from my body.

When I’m done reading, Jerry kindly returns the books to the library. I’m in too much agony to drive there myself, I explain.
I send e-mails to friends in the hope they don’t forget me. “Hi” I say. “I’m writhing in pain.” I try not to be too dramatic, but want them to know I have good reason for not seeing them.
Everyone, it seems, knows of someone who has had shingles. One of my friends tells me her mother had shingles for a year. I suddenly feel a kinship with her mother. I want to commiserate with her, start a shingles support group, share the pain.
…Ohhh. How bad is your pain, my fellow-suffering, shingles support sister? Oooooooo-eee-owww, I feel my hideous pain right now. But having you to commiserate helps me feel better knowing you too have hideous pain…

Friends offer advice. Try lavender oil, peppermint oil, tea tree oil, cider vinegar, gulp a bottle of wine. Okay, no one actually advised me to gulp wine.
Jerry helps when he can, but I know I must water my potted plants on the front porch as only I know how to care for them.
At night, in the moments the pain leaves me, I go outside in my pajamas. I water my plants in the way only I can do.
“Bronwyn!” Jerry says, horrified. “You went outside in your pajamas!”
“Well, who’s going to see me, Jerry? If I hear someone coming, I plan to come inside before they can even see I’m wearing pajamas.”
“I just never thought you would go outside in your pajamas,” he says, disillusioned I’ve exhibited behavior that might have changed his decision to marry me long ago if he’d known.
Jerry brings me some soup. He asks if I need anything else.
I’m sure I do, let me think on it.
Really happy I don’t have to call in sick tomorrow.
Jerr-reeeee! You forgot to bring me a napkin. ♥βω

*******I will notify you when my new edition comes out. My current book will go off the market.