It itches!

I had a great day this last Saturday.  The mother's club I'm involved with has a retreat every spring.  It's open to anyone who would like to attend either for the whole weekend, just one night or to come out for the day. 

It's usually at a local retreat that features nice pools and restaurants on site.  There's also a spa attached but I haven't heard of any of the moms I know dropping $200 on a massage yet. 

I went out for the day on Saturday, just to sit by the pool and have a couple of $3.50 club sodas and talk with my friends.  We all love our children and husbands and homes and lives, but a break is nice. 

After sitting in the shade of a pool umbrella all day, getting up to swim or float around the lazy river in an inner tube with the other women to talk about a whole lot of nothing I got changed and headed for home.  While I was waiting for a quick dinner at Sonic I scratched at my upper left arm and felt bumps there.

What th'?  Did I get bit by a bug?  Uh, there's a lot of them. That's not bugs, what is that?

I went home and went to bed early since I was so relaxed.  The next day I admitted it was a rash.  It was on my chest, both arms, up the sides of my neck and on my face.  It looks like chicken skin. 

Doesn't itch much though, which I'm grateful for because I will scratch.  I'll scratch and pick and gouge until I'm a bloody mess.  I have a divot in my scalp because I selected a spot up in my hair to scratch when I had chicken pox at the age of 13.  I had them horribly too.  I had them on the edges of my eyelids, in my nose, on my tongue, in between my fingers, in between my toes, in my woman parts, it was awful.  The worst was the insides of my elbows and the backs of my knees, it drove me crazy.   I knew I'd scar up my face if I scratched it so I picked this one space on my scalp that I clawed at when I wanted to scratch.  I had a huge scab up there and now I have a depressed scar there. 

Anyway, it doesn't itch much and I'm glad for that.  But I am self conscious about it and it wasn't any better this morning so off to the doctor I trotted.  It took her all of ten seconds to diagnose me with polymorphous light eruption, formerly known as sun poisoning. 

I don't go in the sun very much and when I do I put on sunscreen because I don't want my mom to call me.  I stopped tanning when I was 18 after I heard about that sun damage causes a person's face to age faster.  Was I concerned about elongating my life by trying to prevent skin cancer?  Nope, not me!  I said to myself 'Wrinkles!  Ew!"  and started staying in the shade. 

And as I live in Texas, we actually have more than one season here.  There was an actual winter here not that long ago with freezing temperatures that kept many of us indoors. 

I arrived at the resort around 11:30 and didn't leave until it was almost dark, a little over eight hours that I spent by the pool.  Yes, I was shaded by an umbrella but I know there were UV rays doing that reflective, disco ball type bounce off the concrete and onto my skin where it created a bump. 

I get to live with this condition for about a week until the bumps go away.  Opinions are split as to whether I should avoid the sun to keep the rash from coming back or if I should increase my sun exposure to let my bod know that the sunny weather is here.

It doesn't much matter because I'm going to first be spending time shopping for a big hat and then wearing a big hat so my rash won't come back for at least a while.  We'll see what happens when we head off to California this summer. 

Hopefully, nothing I can't exfoliate away.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  If you sweat, like I do, waterproof mascara is great in the summertime.