Tell All Tuesday 2.7.06

I didn't have chicken pox until March 2005...no, that's not a typo and yes, you read it right. I never had chicken pox as a child (you know, like normal people). I was forced to play with/eat after/drink after my cousins when they had them. Even when my brother had a small case of them, I tried to get it from him...no luck. There for a while, I thought I might be immune to them...until one day...
It was a busy Tuesday morning, and I was rushing to get things done around the house and getting ready to go to Asheville for some shopping and then to meet up with my sister-in-law to eat dinner. I went in the bathroom to get in the shower, and I noticed that I had several little red dots on my stomach...then I turned around to check out my back, where there were more little red dots. My immediate reaction was to pick up the phone and call my mom (isn't it funny how even when you're grown and married, you still have to call mom to have her fix things?!?!). I asked her what chicken pox looked like, and all she could tell me was that it had been so long since she had them, and my brother had so little spots when he had them, that she didn't really know. So, I called Marty, and his advice was to google for pictures of the chicken pox and compare. Well, let me just say that when you google for pictures of people of the chicken pox, you will see that they have found the very worst cases EVER to put on there. So immediately, I start FREAKING out. (You should try to search for it sometime...even if you don't have the chicken pox, you'll probably freak out too!!!) I had to cancel the day's plans and rearrange my schedule for the next week so that I could do nothing but sit on the couch and watch the little red spots form. What fun. My case wasn't TOO bad. I only ended up with about 200 spots (which I know is a lot, but none of them were touching like the pics on google...those people had to have had thousands of spots...I'll take 200.). When I think back on having the chicken pox, I don't really remember the itching. I remember feeling like I had the worst flu of my life. I have never felt so groggy and had so many weak muscle and not been able to walk to the bathroom without losing my breath. The worst part was this: you can only watch TV for so long without it getting on your last nerve. I hate just sitting around doing nothing (and ps...we had just moved into our new house a few weeks before and there were still boxes sitting everywhere...that I couldn't unpack...because I had the chicken pox....right before my 24th birthday). I was so bored...and people couldn't come to see me (except for Brooke & Katrina who are school teachers and are around chicken pox a lot!!). I ended up being contagious for TWO AND A HALF WEEKS!!!! That is a LONG time to sit around and do nothing...and not be able to leave the house...and not be able to see many people. AND it was starting to become spring-like outside, so I couldn't even go out to enjoy it for fear that the sun might pop a chicken pox spot and I would have yet another scar!!
There is some speculation as to how I actually got the chicken pox to begin with. Marty had this crazy rash and the question was (by us and the doctor) "Is is shingles or not?" So, if it was in fact shingles, then I would say I got it from him. If it wasn't shingles...who knows?!?! All I know is that I would GLADLY have that experience (as not fun as it was) at 23 years old, than have that experience a few years later when I have 1 or 2 children who also have the chicken pox and have to take care of them and me...all with this chicken pox.