Man it was very, very tender to the touch.
My first thought was, "Man, I do not remember banging my head this bad!" Yet there was a slightly raised place on my skull like from a concussion, yet it felt a little crusty. I thought, "What is up with that? Psoriasis?"
Then I noticed above my sideburn there was the same thing. Then I noticed I had some hives by my eye and lip and on my cheek. So I tried 25 mg. of Benedryl. Didn’t even phase it. So before I went to work, I got some Claritin to deal with the wheals. Still nothing. It looked like a pimple or two was trying to form by my lower lip. I thought, "Have I been eating all that fat or greasy of foods? What is up with THIS?"
Next I began to notice some recurring shooting of pain on my head on these spots. And I thought, "Man, what is up WITH THIS?"
I went to bed after having taken some acetaminophen (which I rarely take), but about by 1 a.m., the shooting pain woke me up. And I thought, "Man, What is UP WITH THIS?" I could not go back to sleep. I did not know what to do. I began to think, "Man, I wonder if I have the shingles?"
But then I thought, "Why it can’t be the shingles. I’ve already had that shingles shot that all the old folks are supposed to take." Another shooting pain occurred, and I thought, "Man, what IS UP WITH THIS?"
I went to a web site and just tried to use it like a recipe book. I have these symptoms, tell me what I got. But wouldn’t you know it, I could find no such site. I thought, "Man, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?"
Now, just to touch the scalp area was painful. The right side of my neck was swollen. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I said, "MAN, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?"
I began to focus on that maybe I did have shingles after all. Nothing else made sense to me. Of course, I went to the dark side for a moment, and thought maybe I have some weird stage four cancer that is erupting. And then I thought, "Well, no. That is unlikely. I just had a well man physical. Something would have shown up in the blood work."
The pain was getting greater. I thought, "I wonder if I have any hydrocodones left over?" Eureka! I popped two into my mouth at about 3 a.m. Within 20 minutes I was drifting off to sleep.
I made an appointment to see my internist. He is a neat, very knowledgeable, board certified kind of a guy. I love our give and take and verbal sparring. He walked into the room and I said, "I just want to see if you are as good of a diagnostician as I am."
Not taking to it kindly he said, "Listen up! I am better than you are."
I said, "I hope you are, but I just wanted to see if you are at least as good as me. I’m guessing Herpes zoster."
He said, "I knew that before I even came into the room."
I said, "Oh, come on, give me a freaking break. You may be a doctor, but you are not a wizard. Oh, I get it, you heard it from one of your technicians whom I told her that that is what I thought I had!"
He said, "Wrong, camel breath. When I saw on the chart that you had some pain on the right side of your scalp and on top, I said to myself, I said, ‘That dude has shingles.’ When I walked into the door and saw your face my diagnosis was confirmed!"
I said, "Well, you really are a pretty good diagnostician."
Then I sat down and shut up and listened as he lectured me.