Alive and (almost) well

I'm back!!!! The vacation was wonderful and relaxing and everything I wanted it to be right up to the last two days when I broke out with some form of the herpes virus and the entire right side of my face swelled up and blistered. When I started running a fever, Janie decided I should see a doctor and the resort was kind enough to have one come to me. The doctor was very nice, and between her English and my Spanish (both somewhat limited, I must admit) I learned that either this virus has been dormant since I had chicken pox and for some reason decided to visit me now or someone I came in contact with had an outbreak and passed it on to me. Either way, it pretty well sucked. She gave me shots, antiviral meds, antibiotics, and pain meds. During her first visit, the pain wasn't really an issue so I wondered about those pain pills but a few hours later I was glad to have them. She came back the next day and repeated the whole shots/meds thing before I had to come home. I made the trip home looking like a victim of bad plastic surgery - especially my upper lip. It looked like those movie stars you see who get too much of that stuff injected into their lips. Janie said I looked like a poster child for Botox gone bad. Friends - what would we do without them? At least I made it home before all the blisters got way bigger and started exploding. Since these icky blisters were also in my mouth, I couldn't eat solid food. I'm craving meat - an entire week of milkshakes, sherbet, and the occasional scrambled egg just sucks. I took some chicken out of the freezer this morning to cook for dinner and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll actually be able to eat it. Today is better - there's still some puffiness around my eye, but most of the blisters are gone and now I'm just scab-covered. Plus, between the virus and no food I've had zero energy so I haven't done much since I got back. Frustrating! I have summer projects to do!! Hey, if I consider watching Grey's Anatomy and X Files DVDs as one of those projects then I'm accomplishing something.
One final word today about this: apparently I had an outbreak of shingles, but I've always heard that's something old people get, so I refuse to call it that. I'm old, but I'm not that old.
I'll talk more about the vacation next time.