A Wednesday evening

Well I made it 'til Wednesday.  Not too bad.  Mr. Renaissance and I got a couple of the amazing Cuban sandwiches from Paseo, grabbed some beer, and went down to his sailboat docked across the channel from the Ballard Locks.

We were planning on swimming also, but the lovely sunny day turned into a cloudy evening with sprinkles.  No matter, it was still beautiful and a pretty relaxing way to end a work day.

Bubba and Mr. Renaissance are friends.

Check out the gorgeous sunset.

Unfortunately, my body was not quite down with the program.  What started out that morning as a seemingly itchy dry skin patch on my right hand turned into what looked like a series of mosquito bites on my hand and wrist and then later that evening, hives on my hands, wrists, and legs.

Within 15 seconds of seeing this on the drive home, Mr. Renaissance rolled into the grocery store parking lot.   I was all, 'What are we doing at the grocery store?'.  He was all, 'Getting some cortisone cream and Benadryl.  Stay here.'  Oh, ok.  So I took pictures of my legs.

It was a little bit worse than this - darkness obscures it some.

And then sometime in the night (which included waking at up 3am incredibly itchy and taking more Benadryl) it turned into this.

And this.

Hives!  They were everywhere - feet, legs, back of knees, torso, back, armpits, neck, and they were making their way up my face.  This was only the second time I've gotten hives and these were way worse.  I took two more Benadryl, got super loopy, and decided to sleep the whole morning (perhaps gave in to sleep is a more accurate description).  Mr. Renaissance let Bubba out and fed him his breakfast while I fell in and out of sleep every few minutes having crazy dreams.  He wanted me to go to the doctor and get steroids.  I thought that sounded like a pain in the ass.

But after talking to my mom and the advice nurse, and waking up at noon with a hive on my eyelid, I was on my way to Urgent Care.  At which point the triage nurse and the two doctors who looked at me were pretty impressed with this level of hivery.  I left there an hour later and only $40 poorer (hopefully!) with steroids.  Which I took immediately after locating some food because apparently these things keep you awake (time stamp on this post anyone?).  But not before shuffling around Seattle stoned on Benadryl, running my foot over with a cart at Petco (dog was out of food), and mumbling an order of one cheeseburger and one chocolate chip mint hot fudge sundae to the employee at Dick's.  

But now, it's clearing up.  My arms and back are clear, my right hand knuckles aren't swollen anymore, and everything else is starting to fade.  Good idea, those steroids.  

I still have zero idea what caused it.  Super weird, huh?  The body is tricky business.