Final update on my right arm:
The doctor at the "collaborative emergency centre" -- which every rural hospial in NS is now called but I have yet to figure out how it works any better other than the emergency won't ever be closed "due to a lack of doctor coverage" -- took one look at my arm and called a dermatologist at a hospital in Moncton.
Well, that's getting somewhere. She prescribed a topical steroid cream which, after only two applications, is doing the trick.
I'm not sure if Dr. No. 1 got the diagnosis wrong -- two nurses before him said it was shingles, too -- but I saw three different doctors so there was no continuity in terms of seeing the progression of this virus/bacterial infection/dermatitis on my arm. Maybe the dermatologist can explain it. Although Tuesday afternoon, my arm will be healed right up -- no idea if it will scar or not -- I'm still keeping the appointment because I'd like to know for sure what it was and what it became. Was it shingles? Or was it contact dermatitis from the start?
When I went to the drug store with my third prescription in two weeks, I said, "It's me again. Now they think it's -- " I was starting to feel like a patient of Dr. House.
I'm always saying, "I got a scratch while working in the garden this afternoon. If I end up with some horrible outbreak on my arm, it'll be necrotizing fascitis caused by that scratch." Seriously. That's all it can take to bring on n.f. But the flesh-eating disease didn't even occur to me when this whole thing started. What's wrong with me?

THIS JUST IN!
My article on the ospreys nesting next to the house, "Circle of Life," that was published in Saltscapes last fall and was a Silver Finalist at the AJAs in May...received an Award of Merit in the category of General Feature at the International Regional Magazines Association (IRMA) awards in Arizona.
(Award of Merit is the equivalent to an Honourable Mention.)
You know, I'm with Taylor Swift, who apparently is criticized for her "shocked face", the look on her face when her name is announced at an awards show: She says she can't help but be excited and surprised when she wins an award. Every time.
Blase is so blah.


****
The article was highlighted in this month's e-newsletter from Saltscapes so I can provide the link for you to read it again:

http://www.saltscapes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1575&catid=22&Itemid=63&utm_source=Saltscapes.com+Viewsletter&utm_campaign=0f8d442f13-Saltscapes_Viewsletter_Vol_3_Number_19&utm_medium=email

Maybe I should get an osprey tattoo...

Two more things:

I smell like oatmeal. Three oatmeal baths, so far (and I'm supposed to do three a day), and I smell like a cookie (without cinnamon and raisins). Jane, MFJ, said to me this morning, "Watch yourself around a Scottish man. You'll get licked."

And don't tell me that dogs live in the damn moment. I kicked Abby off the bed last night shortly after she hopped up and snuggling up behind Dwayne's bent legs. Sometimes she lies in between us in such a way that neither of us even knows she's there but lately, she's been rolling around a lot and snuggling up and that wakes me; trying to roll over with a 50-pound dog on my legs wakes me!
So I told her to get off and sleep with her big sister on the couch. I covered the two dogs up with their afghan and slept fine until the cat wanted out at 4:30 am.
When I got up an hour later to make my tea and do some yoga (prior to oatmeal bath #1), Abby was giving me the pissed-off face. She wasn't happy to see me (Stella has adopted a constant "Whatever." attitude unless what you want her to do involves a drive to Tim Horton's for a Timbit.
So even though "experts" say dogs don't hang onto the past and don't hold grudges, Abby appeared to be mad at me.
She can be mad all she wants; I'm still the boss and I'm the one that feeds her. Funny how the hairy-eyeball disappeared when the dog dish appeared on the counter.

Two things: I figured out how type for this blog on my tablet - it's hunt-and-peck and now I know why no one capitalizes anything! - and I don't have shingles.
Or maybe I did but now it's a rather nasty bacterial infection PLUS a rash all over my upper chest, neck and shoulders. So for the next few days, you'll find me in the bathtub soaking in oatmeal;I think it's for the itchiness, which is rather extreme. And now that I think about it, the doc in emerg asked me if I'd been gardening so he thinks it could be poison ivy.
I told him that I'm from Ontario and I know what poison ivy looks like. Kids in Ontario learn that early.
Hopefully when I return to emerg for a check-up on Thursday - yes, it was a "real" doctor who I saw today so there's actually follow-up - I'll be much improved.
And bloody hell, typing like this doesn't inspire great eloquence!

In anticipation of a move, my sister has been going through boxes (and boxes and boxes) of, well, her life’s history that has been stored in her basement for years. 

(In her defense, every time my parents drove to  Georgia for a visit, they took more of A’s stuff to her, not wanting the responsibility of deciding what to keep and what to toss.)

Last week she called to say that she and her four kids were having a grand time going through a box of her clothes from when she was a little girl. 

The biggest hit? The Holly Hobby dress.

What I remember of this dress is that my mother had them made up for a special evening at Barnum House near Cobourg. The dresses were long, with poufy sleeves. Mum crocheted shawls for us using colours in the dress (other than brown): peach for my sister, purple for me. We also had matching handbags made as well. 

Weren’t we the stylin’ girls? We might have been 4 and 6, around those ages. 

“I doubt Sara has her dress,” my sister said to Mum on the phone. Was she boasting because she never throws anything out? Or because her youngest son desperately wanted to wear his mother's Holly Hobby dress? 

“I’ve moved across the country three times,” I answered. “You can’t keep everything.”

Except that I was wrong. I have one plastic box labelled “Childhood  Mementos” and in that box, along with cards and toys and a few stuffed animals, I knew I had some clothes, like the dress I wore to my sixth birthday party and a towel with my name on it. 

But I had forgotten that my Holly Hobby dress and shawl were in there as well. 

The dress I wore to 6th birthday party. You can see the cake crumbs on the front!

The title for my next book is "The Girl in the Red Wool Dress". This is all that's left of that outfit.

This is the outfit I wore for my Grade 2 school picture.

But the one you really want to see...

THE HOLLY HOBBY DRESS! Vintage clothing.

Except for the elastic in the sleeves, neckline and empire waist, this dress is in perfect condition; so is the shawl. For the record, the girl on the dress is not Holly Hobby. She just reminded us of her, I suppose. We've always, even then, referred to it as the HH dress so that's what it is.

Funny, out of all the clothes I had and can remember, these are the ones that meant the most to me. How do we decide what to keep and what to let go? There is only one shirt I wish I'd kept; I remember at the age of 7 feeling ambiguous about the colours of my "Cool as a cucumber" long-sleeved shirt -- as a child, I wasn't drawn to yellow and green -- but now I wish I had that shirt in my collection. 

Wait...I'll bet my sister finds it in one of her boxes!

I woke up at 4:30 this morning and just knew I wouldn't fall back to sleep. Not only was I not tired, I felt like I had to get up and work on my query letter for my book. So I was in my office with a mug of chai tea by 5:30 and worked until 7.
It was the most productive 90 minutes I've had in a long time.
Dwayne got up early, too, so I had a coffee break at 6:00 and told him, "This is what it's like to go into labour. There was no way I could stay in bed. I had to get up and work, and I've given birth to a great query."
Finally. In the past 18 months, I guess I've written two dozen versions of my query letter, trying to find the right way to describe my book. Finding my new focus (although not new; there all the time) fixed even that problem. I could even do a pitch in an elevator!
So now I'm thinking I'll have a new routine whenever I get to write books full-time. I'll get up at 5 to work until 7 then go for a walk then eat breakfast. If I've done two hours of good work first thing in the morning, I'll be able to enjoy the walk and breakfast without the pressure of getting to work.
Ah, the dream: No pressure to get to work.

For the past week and a half, I've been dealing with a case of shingles. What I thought was a short-sleeved blouse chafing a couple of "spots" on my upper right arm last Tuesday ended up being this huge 4 inch by 4 inch mess. By the time my husband insisted I head to the hospital (seeing as it takes 6 weeks to see my family physician), it was too late to stop the infection from bursting out. I'm taking the anti-viral meds but they're likely only stopping the shingles from spreading beyond my upper arm (there's a spot on just above the inside of my elbow that has created a less-awful mirror spot on the other side of the elbow bend but other than that, it's been contained to the upper arm).
So just as the temperatures start to fall, I have to wear T-shirts because -- don't read this if you have a weak stomach -- this stuff oozes. The bigger the patch, the more oozing. Disgusting. It's on the front of my upper arm so it's pretty obvious.
"What happened to your arm?" was a common question this week. It actually looked back then like a bad burn. It's not just the blisters that come up; there is also this vast redness that encircles each spot and my arm is puffed up. First thing on Monday morning, Jane was busy and Charlie was on the phone when someone came in with an In Memoriam for the paper; after helping the customer, I went back to my desk and said, "Perhaps Scabby Annie shouldn't be dealing with the public."
On Monday night, I slathered Vitamin E gel on it because some of it was starting to dry up but that appeared to make it worse; yesterday, I slapped some aloe vera on those two lesser spots and cripes! dried them right up but sucked blood up too so the scab looks worse than it is. While I'm glad I didn't try it on the big patch, I'm amazed at how quickly the aloe vera dried the patch up; didn't "heal" it, per se, because the redness around it is still there.
Shingles really is awful. I'm lucky; I'm not experiencing any pain that often goes along with it. I get twinges in the deeper blisters (two of those) but nothing that needs painkillers. I've just used allergy medication for the itching and swelling.
Here's the thing: when this first broke out, I thought it looked like the cold sore I get on my nose. When I finally got around to Googling "shingles" (which is all I think the ER doctor did), it mentioned the danger of a shingles outbreak on the forehead or nose because it could spread to the eyes. I'm thinking I've been getting SHINGLES on my nose all these years. No wonder it was so bad. The website also mentioned the cream, Zovirax, for treating shingles. Well, I have a whole tube of that thanks to my cold sores so I slathered that on it yesterday and by jingo, that seems to be drying it up faster than anything (except the aloe vera but that instant moisture-sucking aspect is a little scary - what if I used it on my nose?!?)
My conclusion about this is that the anti-viral meds are fine (same stuff I was prescribed for cold sores) but the topical cream should have been prescribed as well. And I wonder what role aloe vera could play? So how do I get this knowledge back to the medical community? Not seeing my MD for treatment means there is no follow-up; am I getting better? what is working and what is not working? I'm going to have to write one of my newspaper columns about this.
I am going to make an appointment to see my doctor because I would like to explore this connection with my nose further so I need to see a specialist for that.
I'll be glad when I can start wearing long sleeves over the spot, though. I'm wearing a zippered fleece sweater so that I can keep fairly warm while having my right arm out. Works for the most part although the arm is cold all the time, and I peed on the unused sleeve last night because I forgot it was hanging down behind me when I sat on the toilet.