My daughter, niece, and two of my sisters and myself threw a bridal shower for my nephew’s bride to be this weekend.  She’s a sweet girl.  She has been around for awhile, and I was always under the impression that she was a shy little thing.  After Saturday, I’m beginning to think my nephew is just keeping her down.  She talked openly and often.  She hung out with the in-laws just like she liked us. 

We sent out invitations to 34 people, and I think we had 10 show up.  I usually count on about 50% of the invitees to actually come so it was fairly close.  Her mom, aunt, and bridesmaids showed up, and I think she had a few additional friends.  It was small.  I was glad.  You see the blisters on my feet are back, and I could only do so much hostessing.  As it was I did 98% of my meeting and greeting from the Eames chair in the living room.

I can’t make my mother understand that these blisters are the result of a spider bite.  I’ve told her time and time again that my rheumatoid antigens are through the roof and that my body is in attack mode as a result.  I have been warned to stay away from sick people, and to avoid all forms of flu at all cost.  Yet when this new set of blisters popped up the first thing she said was, “I wish we knew what was causing them.”  Then I explain once again how the immune system works only to hear, “I think maybe you should see a different doctor.”  My very dear, very southern friend who lives down the street came by on Friday for me to give her a shot.  She saw the blisters on my feet and deduced that I have a concrete allergy.  “You’ve got a concrete allergy.”  “I’ve been walking barefoot on concrete for years.”  “Sometimes you build up an allergy, and I haven’t seen you in shoes all summer.”  “You haven’t seen me in shoes because I have these ‘effin blisters on my feet.”  “What did the doctor say when he got your blood work?”  “He said it was exactly what he expected to find.  High RA numbers and normal white count.”  “So he still thinks this is all from that spider bite.”  “Yup.”  “That’s crap!  You need to see a skin specialist.”  “You mean a dermatologist?”  “You know what I mean.  You have a concrete allergy.”  “Okay, I promise not to wear or ingest concrete, and we will see if these blisters get better.”

I love that these old women know more than my doctor.  And I don’t know why they would doubt that a spider bite on my big toe would have cause huge blisters on my feet that no one could possibly imagine if they hadn’t seen them for them self, but there they are.  I have listened to my podiatrist’s explanation of why this has happened and it makes perfect sense.  But looking at these mega blisters makes it hard to understand.  Especially if you don’t get the explanation right from the horse’s mouth. These blisters completely encircle my toenail.  They go down to the base of my toes and around the back of the toe to the second knuckle.  In addition, they are bright red.  They look as if they are filled with blood, but when they drew the fluid out to send in to the lab it was clear.  Now imagine that you have a total of six of them on two feet.  Ouch!  Yes, it is as painful as it looks.  I also have one on each of my heels.  Those are about an inch long and just as angry as the others.  My podiatrist has put me back on prednisone and of course, pain medication.  I sleep a lot, and my mother is taking care of the things around the house that I don’t trust my husband to do.  Mother has apparently forgotten that I don’t do things the way other people do.  I tend to get crap that makes my doctor turn his head to the side, like a little puppy, and look at me in confusion.  “I’ve never seen this before, but…”  I get that a lot.  He once asked me if I look up illnesses in the Mercke manual and then see if I can get them, just to test his ability to diagnose.

I’m not planning any more showers, for sure!  In fact I think my days of having showers are over.  All of my sister’s kids have had showers now, and my kids aren’t going to have me throwing their showers.  I hope.  My great nieces and nephews can have their cousins, or brother’s girlfriends, or sisters throw their showers, and what the hell happened to bridesmaids giving showers?  Wasn’t that the way things were supposed to be?  I wouldn’t know for sure, my bridesmaid was my nine year old daughter.  If she had thrown me a party it probably would have been a Barbie themed event.  That could have been fun…maybe I missed out.  My sisters threw me a lingerie shower, but most of the nighties never even made it past the bedroom door.  I think I wore most of them once, and then settled in to over size t-shirts and boxers.

Oh well, that is what is going on.  My computer was down for awhile, and I couldn’t blog.  Then all of this happened and I didn’t have time to blog, but I’m back!  I have two doctor’s appointments this week so there should be fodder for the blog all week long.  Stay tuned dear ones…the bitch is back!