Why are people so hush-hush about shingles? This is not a disease due to rampant promiscuity or lack of hygiene. Shingles comes and goes for no good reason, unless you can blame stress as a determining factor, but who doesn’t have a little of that in her life?
The fact is, if you had the chicken pox when you were a tot, the virus is still lurking in your nervous system and may resurface as shingles when you are an adult. So most of us are qualified, but since shingles isn’t a common topic of discussion—and actually seems to have shame attached to it—many people aren’t aware when it hits them. This is a problem, because untreated shingles can last for months and months. It can hurt terribly and be a royal pain in the butt—or half the butt, as it was in my case. You see, shingles spreads on just half of you—that’s the telltale sign.
The only reason I am one of the fortunate ones who had the problem named within twenty-four hours is that I thought I had a sudden onslaught of bug bites, and my fear of getting Lyme disease prompted me to make an urgent appointment with my doctor. I naively told the nice man, prior to his inspection of the “skin eruptions,” what had happened the night before: a herd of cows had wandered into my yard at dusk and clearly brought a slew of bugs with them. (The bugs, I went on to surmise, must have followed me into the house and gotten under the covers and attacked me while I slept.)
This was quite a night to remember, by the way. A total of twenty-two cows had escaped from the open space behind my house and sauntered down the hill to settle in my overgrown backyard. The kids were thrilled, so I brought dinner out to the porch and we had a picnic in the presence of these calming but slightly comical creatures tearing up our weeds. One calf pushed our rope swing with its nose, visually tracking it as it went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Eventually—for reasons they probably don’t even know themselves—the cows turned, filed back up the hill, and the party was over.
The next day, having bumps all over (half) my backside, I naturally assumed that the rare visit by the cows had something to do with it. The doctor, who had patiently listened to my story, took a quick-as-lightning look through a magnifying glass, then another, even quicker look, and then announced I had shingles.
I went home with my prescription and read online that certain medications can reduce the severity and duration of the rash if started within seventy-two hours of its appearance. So for me, thanks to the cows who led me to the doctor and the doctor who led me to the meds, the rash wasn’t so bad. And it was hidden nicely under my jeans.
However, after my skin was nice and smooth again, a dull, annoying ache continued to bother me for an entire year. Also, the virus lingering in my system threw a subsequent blood test off and caused a big health scare—a scare that took a few weeks and many more blood tests to remedy.
Most curiously, I have noticed that friends look away when I tell my shingles story—even with the fun cow part. What are they thinking? Shingles is very common and the new vaccine only reduces the risk by half. Besides, I am way younger than the age when the vaccine is even recommended.
Realizing last week that the pain was finally behind me (no pun intended this time), I decided to celebrate by writing this article and do my part in making shingles a little less hush-hush and better understood. Although people are uncomfortable talking about shingles, they may want to read about it in the privacy of their own homes—especially if they discover bumps erupting on one-half of their body.
Originally published on Gail Perry Johnston
