The itch that turned into an outbreak of yet another comorbidity

It’s a new week, so it’s time for a new comorbidity. Not content with affecting my brain, spine, and bodily functions, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis is now making my body break down at a cellular level. Make something funny out of that, Connor.

Toughie, this one. Maybe later — best to get on with the story. Something may turn up (I hope, or this paragraph gets cut).

Just to bring you up to speed, I’ve also acquired lymphedema, trigeminal neuralgia, and, according to my optician, esophoria, although the hospital’s ophthalmologist more accurately defined it as internuclear ophthalmoplegia. Er, that’d be double vision to you and practically everyone else. I now have one eye constantly covered during seeing hours.

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Frogs and crickets

The latest adventure into yet another multiple sclerosis comorbidity started with a small but deeply annoying itch at the end of my right arm. When I bothered to look, I could see it was a bit of psoriasis with a couple of infant neighbors.

I immediately dabbed it with steroid cream, and it cleared within a few days. Then it started popping up everywhere — not as the solid tranche it had been confined to on my forearms six years ago, but rather as small clumps and nucleated spots all over the place. It’s annoying because now there’s an awful lot of places I can’t get to!

Without steroid creams, I’d permanently have a rosy-red face. My paunch keeps growing, and my forced beard (after two months in the hospital) is shockingly white. So I just need white hair and supernatural powers to be a backup Santa.

If I could still walk, with added balloons I’d really be light on my feet. (Photo by Jane Davies)

I have caregivers three times a day, and they’ve helped me do battle with my outbreak. We were definitely winning, until what we all took to be blisters started inflating like small balloons. They weren’t painful, but one of my caregivers was worried because he’d seen this on clients before. He has six years of experience, so I acted on his advice.

The next morning, I phoned my local doctor’s office, and by the afternoon, I was able to speak to my doctor — which is something of a rarity these days. After seeing photos of my new balloons, the doctor immediately prescribed antibiotics, steroids, steroid skin cream, and anti-sickness tablets.

That morning, Saint Jane (my wife) also hit the internet and correctly deduced that it was bullous pemphigoid. Doctors must hate the internet, especially if their patients actually find the right answers!

So I had yet another joyous autoimmune affliction. I might be an atheist, but it seems a waste not to put all those years of my Roman Catholic upbringing to waste: Various plagues keep raining down on me; what’s next, frogs, then crickets?

English joke alert: Frogs would be good for the environment, but crickets never do too well on our home soil. I’d need to find an Australian exterminator.

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