How rash!

Well, I’m sitting here in my room trying to decide what on earth I could write about that would be interesting. So, instead of thinking, I’m just going to write.

Today is Saturday, March 04, 2006. That’s a wonderful thing. I leave to go back to America in 27 days. I have just under 4 weeks, which is nothing at all. Things are rather crazy here in my Dutch household. The family just got over a three week period of sharing a virus with one another. They all took turns having fevers, throwing up, and having atrocious stomachaches. I thought I got through the three weeks without catching the virus. I never had the throwing up, I had a stomach ache for maybe 2 minutes one day, but I dismissed it as being in my head, and I was able to eat the whole time, without any remarkable change to my appetite. My poor host family all had massive appetite problems through the whole ordeal. And I grinned, said that I was grateful that I hadn’t caught the virus, and made it clear that I would not be catching it at all. I had no desire to be sick.

Last weekend I noticed a bit of a rash on my body. Hmm…I’m not really allergic to anything except for rabbits or guinea pigs, but I never break out in a rash for them, so I thought this rash was rather odd. It appeared to be not much of anything, so I ignored it and said nothing to my host family, my real family, or my friends. I probably first noticed it on Friday. Wednesday I noticed that the rash had spread. And it had spread a rather great distance on my body. Uh-oh! I figured it was time to mention it to Danielle, the host mother here. I told her about it, let her see a sample of the rash, and said that I was afraid of it being contagious. She decided we’d call a doctor. Yesterday we called the doctor because the rash had spread considerably between Wednesday and Friday. They set an appointment for me, for Wednesday coming. Well, I was sitting here rather worried. I thought I had ringworm, but that wasn’t something that I really wanted to deal with in my last months experience of being an au pair. I’d dealt with it once in my life and that was just one little fleck, and that one time was enough. Here I must’ve had 30-50 spots hanging out on my body. Great!

Last night I called my mother. That’s what a girl does when she needs advice or needs someone to talk to. She calls her mother. That’s what I did. I told her about the rash, I explained what it looked like, where it was located (just about everywhere!), and what it felt like. Mom started searching on the Internet for what it might be. Finally, I told her about a picture I’d seen in a Dutch Medical Book, which showed a rash that looked just like the one I was hosting. I gave her the name portrayed in the book and she looked it up online. We struck gold! This was it. It had to be. I have Pityriasis Rosea. Okay, so what does that mean?

Pityriasis Rosea is a sort of rash that can be hosted by a young adult that has contracted a virus. Hmmm…it sounds like I caught the family virus after all, but it showed up on me in another way. There’s no cure. You just have to wait for it to run its course, which takes about 6-8 weeks. WHAT!? That means I’ll still have this thing when I get home!! Oh great!! I read further and it sounded like this rash would also spread further, pretty much covering most of my body, but leaving out my head, hands, and feet. Groan. It can be a little bit itchy, depending on the person. Fortunately, I haven’t had it itching to badly yet, though it seems to increase a little bit every day. Hopefully, it won’t do that until the 8th week! It’s not contagious!! YAY!!! That means the kids won’t get it, which is very excellent. It’s not permanent. Yay!!!! That’s also very good. But it usually get worse before it gets better. I’m only in my first week, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if the rash spreads and multiplies further. Groan. But it’s nothing serious, and for that I’m very happy. When I see my parents, my sisters, and my Grace in April I’ll probably be rather spotty, but it won’t matter. I will still be home, I’ll be happy, and I’ll be ready to carry on with life.

I guess you could just label this as one more adventure and experience to add to my ever-growing list. But that’s fine.