the best laid plans of mice and men

Yesterday, I was all set to get up early and head down to Newport, RI for the Newport Half Marathon. Beautiful end of October weather, beautiful course along the ocean and along the cliff walk, right by the beautiful mansions.

Unfortunately, my face had erupted into a beautiful mess.

Last Thursday, I started getting a strange rash along both cheekbones. It was bubble-gum pink and bumpy. And hot. And itchy.

I figured I was having an allergic reaction to something, so I went home, washed my face and took a Benedryl. It did not help. At all. I woke up actually worse than before!

My friend, Isabella, told me that often after traveling overseas, she gets a rash when she returns home. Seems our water in the US has chlorine and fluoride in it, which can irritate skin that's not used to it. So I bought a gallon of spring water and washed my face with that.

It seemed to help a bit. It wasn't as itchy and had toned down from fluorescent pink to a dull red. Bingo! That's all I need to do.

Through Saturday, my mystery rash remained unchanged. I just hung low and kept washing with spring water.

Then Sunday hit. I woke up looking like "Woogie" from "There's Something About Mary". I actually had a small cyst-like bump on the rim of my left eye. (It killed!) Both my eyes were essentially swollen shut. The leprosy had spread from my cheekbones to my chin, jaw, neck, and chest. And I itched. My eyes itched. My nose itched. My ears itched. My throat itched. My hair itched.

There was no way I could run a half marathon in this condition!

I pried my eyes open as far as I could and hit the walk in clinic at CVS. There were 4 people in line ahead of me. All four looked at me and said "Why don't you go in front of me?" ( I probably would have done the same thing)

I think I can conclude, with a fair amount of certainty, that it was not the water that caused this. I still have no idea what it was, but now I'm on prednisone, so whatever it was is clearing up. (I'm still pretty itchy, though)

So now, I'm looking for another half marathon in the New England area. Or not. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?

I dunno.

I'm still hitting Cool Runnings tonite.