Spring Fever(s)

(Legs on wedding day August 14, 2010)

Precursor: This post may be a tad bit personal for some readers. Derek & I are sick. We are thinking it's from some of our cute little 4-year-olds. Being sick reminds me of our wedding and honeymoon. Why do you ask? About 10 days before our wedding I began to notice a rash on my legs and arms. It wasn't itchy, just big and red blotches. A couple days later, I got out of bed, and could not bend at ANY of my joints. I was hunched over in the most horrible pain I could imagine. I stumbled out the door, and made my way to Derek's apartment. Using his medical dictionary, and some help from the internet, he was able to deduct that I had a strange allergic reaction to the birth control medicine I had been taking for about a month. The "diagnosis" was named erythema nodosum. The next day, we stumbled to the ER where I was given confirmation of the named diagnosis. They prescribed me with steroids, which were HEAVENLY. I began to see the swelling, discoloration, and joint pain disappear. I still had slightly swollen ankles & bruises (above) on our special day, but the pain was gone. A couple days later, on our honeymoon in Hawaii, it all came back. We then made a trip to a Kaiser clinic (THANK YOU Hawaii for having my health insurance), and was back on the "roids". It was a long, Long, LONG PAINFUL process, but I haven't noticed any other traces of my reaction, other then the outlines of the bruises on my legs. So today, as I taught a crazy, loud, and typical 5th grade class, I was grateful that I only had a cold and sore throat.