What's wrong with your face?

I swear.

If one more person - stranger or friend - asks me that - I will not be held responsible for my actions.

Are you aware that 1 out of 3 Americans suffer from Eczema to one degree or another? Mine is relatively severe, right now, but generally low to moderate.

I have literally spent 10's of thousands of dollars on over the counter drugs and creams and lotions and tried every medically endorsed treatment known to man.

What astounds me is that with those kinds of numbers out there, people would, in general, be more, oh, I don't know, SENSITIVE?


In the course of one day I had 2 people who live in my building ask me in the following manner:

1. "You're getting a late start - where are you heading? Acupuncture? for pain? Eczema? my brother has that, he uses a salve for the past 5 years that has worked wonders. I'll get you the name.

(Pssst - I lead with the good one - they go downhill from here!)

2. "Are you burned? I mean, did you burn your face? I'm just ASKING! ( My reaction was no - why would you think I was Burned?)

By the time I left my building I was starting to feel frustrated so it should come as no surprise that when I got the grocery store and was reaching for a package of chicken, a mother said to me -"Should you be handling food without gloves?" and then to her child "Don't stare - she can't help it."

I seriously wanted to punch her in the face. And I'm not violent.

So by the time I got to the checkout and the woman behind me said "Did you stay in the steam room too long?" I was, to no one's surprise, less than pleasant in my response. She accused me of rudeness but backed off when I asked her how she would feel if I asked her how far along in her pregnancy she was ( she wasn't).

You see, the old adage of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" no longer prevails. It's sad, but true.

I finally hit rock bottom and told Jon that my biggest fear here is that people will shy away from touching me. THat I will repulse people to the point that I will become a hermit.

He, with tears in his eyes, looked at me and said "I only see a beautiful woman". Of course that sent me to tears. We sat on the couch holding one another for what seemed like hours. He couldn't wash away the day or the pain, but he damn well tried.

The next day, we were meeting a classmate of his who had my dad in school also. I had not met her in person as she lives in Ohio. She was visiting and wanted to have lunch. He beat me to the diner by about 10 minutes ( I was teaching and heading straight there). In that time, he warned her about my skin and the recent emotional strain it's caused me.

Since she and I only have an email relationship until that day, neither one of us knew what the other looked like.

I sat down in the booth next to Jon and she looked at me - after having hugged me - and put her hand over mine and said "I'm sorry you inherited your dad's eczema".

Now THAT was a great response. Because even though she was coached one the situation, she handled it by acknowledging it, being sympathetic, getting it out of the way early and then we relaxed into the meal.

I have never had this take this long to rally and correct. I am having stressful situations set me back and i understand that. I am needing to exercize more but can't because the salt in the sweat causes unbelievable pain. I am going to see if walking the beach will help.

I am doing acupuncture in addition to the Aveeno, Arbonne, Curel, Aquaphor and the mulitude of prescription creams not to mention the Allegra, hydroxyzine and xyzal I take orally. I have a mousse for my scalp and I use a sugar scrub and essential oils in Lavendar. I have 1000 count egyption cotton sheets on the bed and the bedroom temp is cool.

Right now my face is fairly clear. My hands are the worst. my feet too. Not a surpise as circulation wise they are the furthest from my heart.

Honestly. I was blessed that growing up I never knew how disfiguring this was. If I saw someone afflicted I would never DREAM of mentioning it. I never realized that the disfigurement would apply to me, but it does. It was a hard realization to come to.

The worst times are night times. THe minute I start to relax the itching starts. Nothing stops that freight train once it's rolling out of the station. I take a lot of sleep aids and allergy aids, but I get very little sleep. In reality I got from 7-8 hours per night to 2-3 at a time. I eat less because I am in pain. I fidget more because I can't get comfortable. It's really unpleasant.

It is getting better, it's just taking way too much time.

Welcome to my world of eczema.

Write your worries away

It started out as a method to help my best friend through a difficult time with her child.

You see - she has a child in Kindergarten. She is an angel at home and a demon in school. Her twin is a demon at home and an angel in school.

School/demon child has gotten naughty notes sent home to the tune of about 3 a month. Largely for defiance. She tends to do things her way on her time table. In kindergarten - that doesn't really work.

Long and short - on a Friday, my best friend was called and told that her child was in danger of suspension. From Kindergarten. Yes seriously.

Oh did I mention the child has special needs?

The worst of it is the administration and teachers asked the child if she understood what suspension meant. She's 5. It's unconscionable.

So here it is a Friday, my best friend was going to end up worrying her weekend away. We had standing plans for game night, but that was only one evening....

So I told her to get a notebook and as each point in her mind came up, to write it in the notebook and forget about it.

Her meeting was scheduled for Tues. I told her on Monday morning to pull out the notebook and review her "worry list" and make a point by point list of the useful things for this meeting.

I realized tonight that I am weary. Beyond tired - I'm mentally just ... weary.

I am juggling a lot of balls in the air and it's getting harder and harder to keep them all up there.

So I decided to use my personal journal as a "worry list". But I will give you the short list here as an example and maybe it will enable me to let it go so I can sleep.

1. I have to go to court on Friday. I have a lot of things to prepare before I go and I have never been to court before in my life.
2. Money is tight. 'nuff said
3. My family is pressuring me to conform to their expectations of what my relationship should be - without going into a lot of details here, this is making me insane.
4. Jon's mom is back on her kick about is psychiatric health - this concerns me. In fact - just lump all of his health in there.
5. I am not a strong enough person to tell my father's widow that I simply cannot participate in the garbage dumping, bitch sessions gossippy crap that she calls a conversation or "blowing off steam". I am simply put - weary of the same line of conversation - the oinly thing that changes are the names.
6. My skin is doing an up and down thing - good days and bad days and very frustrating
7. I am dealing with a parent who has decided to tell me how to teach. I am very upset about this actually. I am told what the kids issues are when arrive to teach, I am told to handle it and when I do, I am told to stop the lecture. It's very frustrating. I am a damn fine teacher so this is really not cool.

Those are my short lists. Writing it down makes me feel like I can let it go. At least till I am ready to deal with it.