This is my brain on drugs

Oh man, where to start.  I guess I'll just get into it.

The hives didn't quite go away.  I woke up Saturday pretty itchy.  Well, no.  Incredibly itchy.  Maddeningly itchy.  Grateful I had long fingernails that day itchy.  I called the advice nurse and they gave me a prescription for 3 more days of steroids.  Ok, done.  I'll pick that up later.  I took a cool washcloth and ice to my legs.  I called Mr. Renaissance and asked if I could come over and hang out in his hammock while he worked on his house (I was out of steam dealing with this alone).  So stoned on Benadryl, I dragged a cooler of ice, some magazines, and the dog over to his place where he was pile driving some part of the foundation.  A few minutes later I was hanging in the hammock staring into space with some ear protection on.

Then at 5 he took me to The Quiet Comedienne's baby shower.  There was no way I was getting there on my own with all that Benadryl.  He hung out for a few minutes, met some of my friends, then went back to work on the house.  Around 8 I invited him to come back and hang out at the baby shower that had by then turned into a fun BBQ.  We hung out 'til midnight, had fun with my friends (and they approved), then we headed back to my place.  At this point, I couldn't have felt more grateful.  Grateful that I have awesome friends who care enough to approve or disapprove of who I'm dating, grateful that he was comfortable around my friends and had a good time, grateful that he's social and sweet and an ideal party partner, and grateful that he was dragging my ass all over town.

Sunday morning I woke up and my lips were swollen.  And other parts of my face.  With a side of hives.  Oh shit.  This is the sort of thing they told me to go into Urgent Care right away for.  So we got dressed and he drove me in.  I was pretty worried.  And pretty horrified that I looked like Sloth from The Goonies.

He went into the room with me and was very sweet and distracting.  He made me laugh, held my hand, sat me on his lap.  It was way less scary than if I had been there by myself.  

They upped my steroid dosage and put me on a total of 12 days of them, and changed me from Benadryl to Zyrtec.  Ok, fine.  Two hours later we were on our way.  I went home to nap and try to regain normal facial structure, and he went back to the house to work. 

I woke up at 5 looking less like a Real Housewife of Orange County and more like a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.  Ok, this I can work with.  The hives were also gone.  But I was left with some pretty serious cabin fever from convalescing 4 days in my room.  So I got the ok to convalesce on the hammock at his house.  This time not stoned on Benadryl.  Which meant I could actually read a book.  And text some friends.  

Then we headed over to BurgerMaster for dinner, and I convinced him (which was embarrassingly easy) to come back to my place after he got cleaned up (man was dirty), as I still needed a cuddle.

Monday morning we got some coffee and I took my second day of 3 steroid pills.  Half an hour later I was feeling a little weird.  Imagine the biggest caffeine buzz you've ever had.  You know the fast heartbeat, extreme nervous energy, extra anxiety, and complete inability to focus?  Yes, that.  Now imagine a tornado goes through your brain and shakes it all up.  And you feel like that from 10 am to midnight.  That was my day.  I didn't get a whole lot of work done.  A little, not a lot.  Everything I normally do to relax myself I used in an attempt just to get back to some sort of normal me.  It mostly didn't work.

Tuesday I decided to start reducing my dosage one day early - 2 pills, not 3.  This was a good plan.  Because I'll tell you - my problem is not the hives anymore.  The hives have been gone since Sunday.  My problem now is the drugs.  The drugs are messing with me.  But now that I'm tapering down the steroids it's getting back to normal.  Slowly.  And I have an appointment tomorrow with my regular doctor.  Maybe they'll want to set up an allergy test or something.  I don't know.

But anyway, back to Tuesday.  Ah, I was still too amped up and unfocused to work so I did some other stuff instead (slept til 11 while the steroids were finally worn off from the day before, went grocery shopping with The Baker, and then went to book club).  Afterwards Mr. Renaissance met me back at my place and we stayed up 'til 4 showing each other our lives via digital photo collections.  Oh lord, I guess that leads into today.

Wednesday.  We got up, I made a weekday-morning-nothing-fancy breakfast, I started cleaning the kitchen (two new roommates coming, people!) and he hung out with me and ended up scrubbing the top of cabinets.  It was amazing.  So nice.  Then we spent the lunch hour(s?) back upstairs (ahem).  And ended up talking, and talking, and talking.  And admitting even more of the details that we're smitten.  That we want this to work.  That externalities may make it complicated and therefore taking it slow might be the smartest.  But that we haven't really been able to take it that slow so far.  And that it feels right, and it feels good, and it feels easy.  And a lot of other details that may be a bit too early to reveal at 4 weeks (finances, children, dreams), unless you're us, and unless it feels like this.  We admitted we were both afraid that the other shoe would drop, and we tried to ferret it out.  We didn't find it.  He didn't want to leave, I didn't want him to leave, he finally left (at 4 pm).

And then I spent the rest of the day deep-cleaning and organizing the kitchen and living room.  And it looks good, people.  It looks good.