meg smitherman

Fucking christ. I’m alive, I guess.

So. Can I just recommend never having any weird medical conditions? Like, just don’t get one?? When you hit up the weird medical condition store, leave empty-handed.

God. So it’s been a long… what, fortnight? A fortnight of misery? I was going to do a whole timeline of the dumb shit that happened leading up to this, but honestly it’s just so boring and frankly distressing for me to revisit in any great detail, so fuck that.

In short: I had my wisdom teeth removed, the surgeon made an error, the error resulted in more pain during recovery than was necessary, I took a lot (A LOT) of pain medications, and just my luck — the meds aggravated my weird medical condition: chronic idiopathic urticaria. Or, in normal terms, ~mystery hives~.

You can kinda see them on my arm and ankle in the cool pic of me above at the ER! These hives are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. What’s neat about them is that I will never know what caused them, they may never go away, and I am currently on no less than 6 different medications to keep them under control! They’re not related to any external allergen — it’s just some kind of fucked up shit my immune system decided to do on a whim a few years ago, I guess. Thanks, immune system! Doing your job exactly as intended, I see.

So that’s pretty much the gist of what three different allergists (one specializing in mystery hives) have told me. Supposedly the postoperative opioids, NSAIDs, and antibiotics all worked together to get the hives riled up, and despite the many medications I take every goddamn day to keep them in check, they boiled over and decided to ruin my life again.

Anyway, the hives didn’t manage to reach their full potential — thank god — but they were, and have been, an absolute fucking nightmare to get back under control. I got a butt shot and an IV of steroids and antihistamines, you guys. A BUTT SHOT! I thought butt shots cured literally everything, yet here I am, over a week from the onset of these babies, and I’m still at some level of miserable during most of my waking hours.

I feel like it’s weird to blog about medical issues, because nobody really cares and it always feels like I’m complaining, but my social media has been nothing but weird allusions to my illness lately, so I figured I’d better like… explain?

So! I’m working again as of yesterday (albeit from home), which is a massive relief. I was truly unable to focus on anything requiring higher brain function for several days, which, let me tell you, was a hoot and a half! If you’ve never had hives all over your entire body, face and crotch included, boy howdy YOU SHOULD TRY. I spent my days in and out of a pain/itch haze, eating entire pints of ice cream in a sitting just to distract myself, draped in cold damp cloths, watching Frasier and New Girl like my life depended on it.

And, to be perfectly honest, it kind of felt like it did. I wasn’t in a good mental place. I’m still not in a very good place. But I am coming out of it; the hives are now just super itchy red blotches on my skin instead of swollen raised bumps. I can actually sleep for a significant portion of the night, only waking up once or twice instead of being completely unable to sleep at all. It’s these small improvements that are keeping me sane.

According to my allergist, I should be back to normal sometime next week. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the small things, like being able to have a conversation or brush my teeth without shaking uncontrollably. I’ve even cut myself off the ice cream pints (for now).

Sorry this was such a depressing post? Better things later. More thanks to come, because even in this hellish nightmare of a fortnight, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Until then, POSI VIBES~