Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Virus Loses

At the end of a good fight the pityriasis rosea virus I first posted about here gave up last Monday. It was a good contest and it lasted several times longer than expected. The experts said six to eight weeks; the web-sites ten to sixteen weeks. The actuality was six months. Six months of nasty scaly, itching leading to eczema patches. I believe I have taken it pretty well. Not quietly and without complaining for sure but with a quiet determination that the thing wouldn't get me down.

This blog respects diseases. They have been around a long time and can be described as a life-form. Me and pityfeatures were not happy together in our symbiosis but a grudging mutual respect was born for a laster.

The end was weird. When I awoke on Monday morning I still itched but as I scratched (naughty, naughty very naughty) it provided relief rather than exacerbating things. I knew then that the virus was no longer active.

My newly developed washing and moisturising habits are now pretty ingrained so I may just keep on going. Also I'm not quite ready to display my scarred back to the world until I've got a bit of new skin. It's ugly man.

One strange habit I have developed (don't chuckle at the back) is of removing the labels from T-shirts. Cotton T-shirts were the only thing that were really comfortable recently (dog collars sucked big time) but the labels are not pure cotton. If I have a lot of my T-shirts on backwards in the next few days be gentle with me.

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