X-mas X-zema

One might conclude from last year's White Christmas, Part II posting (so-named because it centered on Jennifer, a white relation who infested our holiday celebration,) that I was not enrapt by Jennifer's attendance. You might conclude that I had wished her removed from my presense. You might even conclude that I despise Jennifer. You might be right, on all three counts.

Yet in spite of last year's debacle, I was genuinely hoping that she would make an appearance at my aunt's house this year. I do, afterall, need material for my blog—I don't make this stuff up, so I need a muse of one sort or another to inspire me, to catalyze in my teeming brain the reactions which yield these essays as their final products. (Sorry about the mixing of metaphors; thinking about Jennifer must have thrown a wrench into my phrenic wheels, and I couldn't decide which over-used metaphor I liked better, so I kept them both.)

So it was much to my dismay when I was told that Jennifer and her husband alternate Christmasses between his family and hers—and since we had the pleasure of her company last year, this holiday season looked to be Jennifer-free. [How this simple every-other-year pattern escaped my uncanny powers of observation in the past is beyond me. Maybe I never had a substantial reason to anticipate her visits, and therefore never noticed her absense(?)]

But because I was more naughty than nice this year, and coal just isn't eco-friendly, Santa brought me something just as charming in lieu of Jennifer: eczema. I am not qualified to diagnose ailments of any kind, so I cannot definitively say it's "eczema," but my doctors have offered no alternative name, so as of now "eczema" is what we're calling it. Basically, it started out as a red ichiness behind my ears, and spread slowly to the top of my ears, then foward to my eyelids and around the corners of my mouth. When the itchiness reaches the point of maddening, and I can therefore no longer retrain myself, I rub or scratch the inflammed thoughts, causing them to become uber-inflammed, as you can see below:

[Where'd my double eyelids go? You can't see them, and neither can I, because my eyes are swollen to the point of being nearly shut. That shiny glaze you see on my skin is not facial oil; it's the ointment I am applying to my epidermis to counteract the eczema.]

This strange episode is not without precedent, though it happened only once before. The previous occurance took place about three or four years ago, when I was still an undergraduate. The symptoms were identical, and in both instances, I am not sure what caused the inflammation, but it lasted less than a week. What follows is an excerpt of the discussion I had with the stand-in physician (my normal doctor was not in for my "emergency appointment.")

Me: Hi, maybe you can't tell because you don't know what I normally look like—and I'm Asian, and most of us have really small eyes—but my eyelids are inflammed. Actually, I usually have rather large eyes.

Doctor: Actually, yes, I can see that your eyelids look inflammed. How did this happen?

Me: Well, I'm not sure. It started as a rash behind my ears…[here I recount the genesis of the rash, as described above]. This happened only once before, about three years ago. I didn't know then what caused it, and I'm still not sure. The only thing I remember is that my doctor prescribed a very mild steroid topical creme to apply, and that helped alot.

Doctor: I see. Do you remember the name of the steroid?

Me: No.

Doctor: Was it Desonide?

Me: Still don't remember...

Doctor: Okay, well I'm going to prescribe some Desonide creme. Apply it twice daily. It may take a few days for the inflammation to fully subside. Do you have any allergies? Are you using any new lotions, shampoos, conditioners, colognes, detergents, anything like that?

Me: I have no known allergies. I am not using any new skin care products [because my skin care regimen has been so meticulously wrought that I have neither the desire nor the need to alter it]. I did have to use my sister's fabric softener a few days ago, because I ran out of my own.

Doctor: Are you still using it?

Me: Well, I did my laundry a few days ago, and I haven't worn enough clothes in the interim to justify doing another load, so I guess 'no.'

Doctor: Okay, it sounds like it's the fabric softener. Don't use it any more.

Here I would like to point out what I consider a flaw in Dr. Perry Mason's theory: my ears, eyes, and mouth are the parts of my body having the least contact with my clothing (and with the chemicals in my sister's fabric softener), so it didn't make alot of sense to me that these were the only parts where I had eczema. I will concede that the skin on my eyes, ears, and around the mouth is some of the most delicate, so that might bolster her hypothesis a little. Still, I feel like she just wanted to latch on to something in order to give me more confidence in her diagnostic powers. In any event, her Desonide creme did the trick, so I'm one satisfied customer.

The photos above were taken just before I went to meet some friends at the Starbucks at the Block. Upon seeing me there, Auggie (who calls herself one of my two best friends!) started convulsing with laughter. She tried to rebound from this gaffe by asking, "Are you okay? What happened?" but she was only able to speak through suppressed giggles. X-mas x-zema. Ex-best friend.