The Hives

I guess the hives have been on my mind because we are approaching their 5 year anniversary.

After ending my first year of law school on a high note and spending the summer studying in Europe, I hit the downward slope big time in my second year. 9/11, not getting a call back from The Firm I Was Destined To Work For, getting a call back and an offer from a firm equally as great as The Firm (and better in most people's minds--including Forbes) but never being completely comfortable with it, my parents struggling mightily in their 30+ year marriage, living in a house that was one big allergen--UGH. I decided to work on my attitude. I made a great orzo salad with shrimp and feta and pine nuts and I went for a walk.

I hate exercising. Hate. It. So, the fact that I took a walk around the neighborhood was big. And that night, I had a hive on my thigh.

In the shower the next morning, I noticed several more hives on my thigh in addition to some developing on my arms. It was the exercise, I joked. I always knew I was allergic to exercise. Julie forbade me from eating any more of my delicious orzo due to all the possible causes in it. It probably cost my food budget for a month--but, I had to throw the rest away.

I took benedryl and they only got worse. I went to the health center; they gave me what is famous on campus as being the "pink pill." It had to be sugar. I finally went back and got a referral to an allergist. All of that took about 1 1/2 weeks--the whole time, I'm covered in hives.

Julie came to Mom and Dad's for a weekend, so I went up as well. As we were returning to their house from Atlanta, I mentioned that part of lip was numb. I was also feeling a little wheezy. That got me my first prescription for an epi-pen.

I finally went to the doc who's accent was so thick that I honestly had a very hard time understanding him. He ran some tests and started me on the lovely drug protocol. 1 Zyrtec, one pepcid and 10 mg of prednisone in the am. 1 Zyrtec in the pm. Needless to say, I slept. And still had hives. All the tests came back negative for anything with a name--no new allergies, no lupus, etc. It just showed that I have a weakened autoimmune system. We changed it one Allegra in the am instead of the Zyrtec and upped the prednisone to 20 mg.

Now, when I'm not sleeping, I'm eating. And I still have hives. Finally, we up it to 30 mg of prednisone and added one of those medicines for osteoperosis (like the one that Sally Field is now advertising).

No more hives. Instead, it's extreme hunger, weight gain, aggression, and sweating. Good grief!

In the middle of all of this, we went to Orlando for spring break. We were heading to a party with some of M's grad school friends, and boy did we owe him. He had been to more than his share of law school parties, so we were happy to return the favor. A and I went to the restroom after dinner before heading to the party and I asked if my eyes looked swollen to her. It looked as if I had water blisters under my eyes. Oh god--

Within an hour of so, my eyes were practically swollen shut and half of my bottom lip was swollen. There was a Will Smith movie not too long ago where he had a similar reaction. There I sat at this party--we were icing my eyes and telling everyone I got in a fight--and I looked like a freak of nature.

The next night, we were downtown and I just remember my ass itching off. I went to the restroom and my butt was literally COVERED with hives. Between that and A & M getting in a fight, I was just ready to go home that night.

Soon thereafter began the sweating--oh lord the sweating. I would get to class and be freaking out because I was just dripping in sweat. A would force feed me water and fan me, but nothing would help the sweating. I started having to wear black every day since I would sweat through everything else.

By the time I started work that summer, I had put on 30 pounds from the time I interviewed. And I sweated--all the time. Is it any wonder I didn't get a job? One day, I had on a silk shirt, so I had stuffed some toilet paper in my pits in hopes of not ruining my shirt. Shortly thereafter, another summer associate came by my office and asked if I could help him figure something out on the computer. I went in his office and checked it out. As I headed back to my space, I saw the wadded up toilet paper in the hall. Nice one.

Anyway, they never really figured out what caused the hives. I'm obviously prone to such reactions, and I think the stress was too much. By the time I started my third year, I didn't have a job, a clue what I wanted to do or the GPA I started my second year with, but my parents seemed to be ready to make it work and I wasn't saddled with a job I was going to hate. After a horrible summer of tapering off the roids and suffering in the polluted city, I moved into one new space--and then another--and enjoyed getting to know my new dog. I took the anniversary of 9/11 off and mourned as I could not the year before. I bought some fat girl clothes and slowly stopped sweating so badly. I tried to have some fun and savor my last months of freedom and weekday shopping.

I'm still not sure what the lesson of the hives was supposed to be. Maybe that I need to quit internalizing everyone else's troubles and expectations. Maybe it's that I need to follow my gut when I'm making decisions. Maybe it was that an entire box of cereal is too much to eat in one sitting--especially if you're sitting in your bed at 10:30.

Every now and then, I have a hive first thing in the morning and I'm filled with a sense of dread. However, so far (knock on wood), I've only had one swollen lip and no big outbreak of hives. I can't really say I miss them, but they sure did give us a lot of laughs in a year that was not very funny.