You CANNOT be serious.

(These pics are NOT of me!)

What are these disgusting pictures you ask? Well, have you ever heard of shingles? I had heard of them, I just didn't know anything about them. Well evidently, Shingles (herpes zoster) is a viral infection of the nerve roots. It causes pain and, obviously by the pictures above, a disgusting rash. Shingles is most common in older adults and people who have weak immune systems (WOW--I guess that's me) because of stress, injury, certain medicines, or other reasons.

What causes shingles? Shingles occurs when the virus that causes chickenpox starts up again in your body. After you get better from chickenpox, the virus "sleeps" (is dormant) in your nerve roots. In some people, it stays dormant forever. In others, the virus "wakes up" when disease, stress, or aging weakens the immune system. Nobody knows why this happens. But after the virus becomes active again, it can only cause shingles, not chickenpox.

The rash turns into clusters of blisters. The blisters fill with fluid and then crust over. It takes 2 to 4 weeks for the blisters to heal, and they may leave scars. Some people only get a mild rash, and some get a rash that spreads.

Now imagine the darkest, worst, most horrible place you could develop this rash. If you guessed the hiney, the rear, the buttocks, or the arse, you guessed correctly. Yes, gross. Now you can sympathize with me because of the horror I experienced when I arose Saturday morning to get in the shower and discovered this rash all over my right gluteous maximus. I started freaking out of course--my lymph nodes in my leg sockets were like golf balls too--and so I immediately marched myself over to the Instacare down the street from my house.

They took a "sample" and ran some tests (while Colton and his dad sat in the waiting room) in order to diagnose my shingles and then the worst part--the filling of the Rx. As I sat in the pharmacy at Smith's, anxiously awaiting my name to be called so I could get started on this treatment, I prayed that the pharmacist wouldn't look disapprovingly at me and think to himself "she's disgusting". You see, the pills that you have to take to rid yourself of shingles are called Valtrex. Ever heard of them? Let me refresh your memory...

Do you recall the commercials where the man looks into the camera with the most pleasant look possible on his face and calmly says, "Just because I have an outbreak of genital herpes doesn't mean my partner has to."--Then he proceeds to climb into his canoe with his true love who has somehow managed to remain unaffected by his herpes? Oh yes. You see where I am going with this. Valtrex is most popularly known as the genital herpes treatment & a little less known for the fact that it is also used to treat shingles.

Back to the pharmacy...They finally call my name and I try to sneak to the counter just as the clerk asks, "Are you familiar with Valtrex Melissa?" No. So he proceeds to shout, "I'll get the pharmacist to come talk to you about it. Dan!? Can you come talk to her? She's never used Valtrex before?" Humiliating. Humiliating. Humiliating.

But rest assured people--You can't catch shingles from someone else who has shingles. However, if you haven't had the chickenpox and you feel like touching my butt...don't. Because you could get chickenpox from my shingles.