Symptomology

I can't sleep to save my life tonight. Or at least, not at this instant. I slept earlier, but once I awaken under these circumstances, sleep doesn't always return. One of the symptoms of Hodgkin's Lymphoma is what the books circumspectly call "night sweats". I call them "an absolutely disgusting torrent of sweat." Doesn't matter if you're awake or asleep either, apparently - I soaked the sheets and woke myself up, and now I'm soaking my shirt and shorts in front of the computer.

Another symptom is a sudden attack of nonspecific itching. Normally it's just the broad surfaces like my back, shoulders or chest, but sometimes (like right now) even the small, fiddly patches of skin get involved. Even that structure that lies between my nostrils itches. The skin behind my ears itches. The whole sweep of my back itches all at the same time. I have vivid fantasies of taking off my clothes and standing in a car wash so the industriously-whirling scrub brushes could itch every part of me simultaneously.

So here I sit, itching and scratching and sweating. Lovely image, isn't it? I feel filthy. Nobody can be this itchy and sweaty without needing a shower, right? And, truth be told, showers sometimes do help. I mean, at the very least you don't have to feel beads of sweat running down your legs and into your socks. But I can't take a shower yet - surgeon's orders. I sport a gay festoonery of dressings from my biopsy and Borg Implant, and the surgeon doesn't want them to get wet. Inasmuch as one of them could provide bacteria with access to my vena cava (superior or inferior? I wish I knew) I guess I should take orders seriously.

I guess the modern approach is to sponge betadine in huge quantity over the areas of interest and to let it dry afterwards. I have (well, had) dried betadine all over my chest and neck, and even had a good deal of it in my hair. Tonight's profuse night sweat has sort of mobilized the betadine, however. It's flowing down my chest in streaky rivulets of rust-colored sweat and betadine, as if I didn't need another reason to desperately crave a shower.

But oh God this itching it driving me mad. It isn't like a rash, where the same spot itches over and over. It's different. It's every spot itching at one time or another. You scratch your nose, then the small of your back, then behind one knee, then an eyebrow, it just goes on and on and on like a childhood game of Locate All Your Body Parts.

And now I'm starting to hurt again. I can feel my pain pills losing their edge.

So let me wish everyone a merry Christmas, and let me wish us all peace and prosperity.

That said, I'm going to go take some pain pills and see if I can convert a broom into a high-speed overall-body scratching apparatus. Yowzer.