The newest twist...

...in the saga of my myriad diseases is that I'm not allowed to go to work. I hadn't mentioned it before because it was so minor, but the short fever I had developed from the Lyme disease as well as the minor sunburn from the antibiotic-induced photosensitivity resulted in my first-ever outbreak of shingles. For those who don't know, shingles are caused by the same virus that caused your outbreak of chickenpox when you were a kid (side note: chickenpox is not caused by a pox virus at all, but by a herpes virus called Herpes zoster, as opposed to Herpes simplex which causes genital herpes and facial cold sores). Chickenpox works essentially the same way as any herpes virus, that is, once you get it, it stays with you for the rest of your life, occasionally manifesting as outbreaks of pustules. With chickenpox, the outbreaks are called "shingles" and they usually only occur when your immune system is being challenged (like from an acute case of Lyme disease) or when it is being compromised (like from old age or chemotherapy). What many people don't realize though, is that you cannot catch shingles from someone else. You can only catch shingles from yourself, and even then, only if you had already had chickenpox (again, shingles is literally the re-emergence of the exact same virus that caused your childhood chickenpox - not just the same species of virus, but the exact same virus, laying dormant all those years, waiting for an opportunity). Having said that however, someone who has shingles can give a case of chickenpox to a chickenpox-naive person, but only if the chickenpox-naive person rubbed up against the skin sores of someone with shingles. Someone with shingles can't just cough on a chickenpox-naive person and give them chickenpox (in the way someone with chickenpox can). Is that all clear?

Anyway, my shingles sores are restricted to a 3x3 sq. inch section of my lower back. Despite my limited ability to infect people however, there is still that small risk that my lower back might be accidentally rubbed by the mucous membranes of some adult who has never had chickenpox or who has such a severely damaged immune system that they are vulnerable to chickenpox re-infection. With that in mind, my company apparently has a policy of not letting people with shingles come to work, so I was sent home yesterday (after I casually mentioned my spot of shingles to our HR director). I can't come back until I can produce a doctor's note saying that I am no longer contagious. I made a call to my doc yesterday and today, so hopefully this will all be resolved soon. Staying home is nice and all, but I've already taken most of the vacation time I need this year.