72 and counting

Like every kid with chicken pox, I decided this morning after my shower that I better count just how many bumps/blisters cover my adult body. I`m at 72 today. The worst is my face. I`ve got about 11 or so on my now-ugly mug. Enough to keep the perverted construction workers from whistling at me each time I walk by to get coffee or a water, though. Not necessarily a bad trade :) But the medicos promise me that if I don´t pick, the marks won`t be permanent. Let`s just say me and my vanity are crossing our fingers.

Of course I feel like kind of a freakshow for being one of the very, very few adults who get chicken pox for the second time. Seriously, as most of my friends would concur, I`m exactly the person this would happen to. Especially while travelling abroad.

But according to various Googled Web sites, ¨people cannot get chicken pox twice.¨ Again, only me.

Needless to say, it`s not the worst ailment I`ve ever been afflicted with. I remember it being much worse as a child. According to my adolescent memory, I was the first kid in Mrs. Schwartzman´s first-grade class to get the chicken pox. I think it`s the only sickness where you actually get to play with your friends. The moms of my classmates wanted us all to get the virus at the same time and get it over with, so we got to play together after school that day. But what followed could only be described as itchy hell. I vaguely remember my mom soaking me in a vat of calamine lotion followed by ice packs. I`ve definitely taken the route of calamine lotion this time around, too.

As it happens, that cold/cough that I couldn´t kick after leaving Buenos Aires was likely a precursor to my second bout with varicella. Turns out not only do a get a note to stay home from school - just like when I was kid - but now I`m taking herpes medicine. Or so I understand it in Spanish. Alex and I are planning to take this week off from language school and start right back up on Monday.

Assuming I look normal again, of course.

- JMH