Nope, I’m not pregnant, it’s just shingles

I decided this morning that having shingles is akin to being pregnant, only without the happy ending.

I came to that realization after evaluating the nausea I started with. You know, the kind where you find yourself kneeling before the commode, trying to decide if it would be better to just throw up and get it over with, or to get (another) drink of water and pray it will pass. It passed, thank heavens. Otherwise I was going to have to figure out if I should take another of these horse pills they prescribed me!

And that part is the next parallel – the horse pills. 800 mgs at a time, they remind me a great deal of the prenatal vitamins my Ob-Gyn so generously prescribed. At least the vitamins only had to be taken once a day. These monsters? Every four hours.

So, I took one at 3pm. And again at 7pm, another at 11pm, and set an alarm to take one at 3am. These say to take with lots of water. I am. Guess what that means? Every hour to hour and a half between each pill, I have to pee. I was up more last night than I think I ever was with our kids as newborns!

I’m hopeful, at least, that having the right medicine will keep the shingles from spreading any worse than they have. Of the most immediate concern is the small patch just at the inside corner of my left eye. Should I actually get shingles IN my eye, the expense that I’m looking at is going to increase exponentially, and there is a very realistic risk of a loss of vision.

Thankfully, I’ve had essentially no pain or discomfort so far. Everyone I’ve spoken to and everything I’ve read about having shingles left me very wary of the potential pain. I have noticed what can only be described as electrical impulses around my temple, but they’re simply annoying, not painful.

So that’s where it’s at. I’m not pregnant, but certainly dealing with some similar symptoms. Just going to keep drinking water and fending off that nausea, and knowing that like morning sickness, this too shall pass!