Poxed

"Oh my, that child is not good for your health."

That was a concerned doctor at the walk-in clinic in Streatham, after she carefully lifted my t-shirt to listen to my breathing with a stethoscope, only to discover there was absolutely nowhere to place it on my poxed-up back.

She gasped a little and added:

"Well, if that's any consolation, this is very close but still not the worst case of chicken pox I've seen in an adult."

Yes, I have been incredibly unlucky. There's only like 0.0001% chance you get chicken pox twice in your life, but it is indeed possible. I was seated in the waiting room of the clinic, being kept far away from other people, on a solitary chair of shame, hoodie covering my face full of sores and blisters, shivering and chuckling to myself like a true meth-head mess, being classified as such by everyone who glanced upon my monstrous new outlook.

It's just a few days ago that Alfie (my 3-year-old husband to be that I share a flat with) bravely vanquished a carefully orchestrated bout of chicken-pox and that way PRESUMABLY developed a life-long resistance to the varicella-zoster virus. When Emma learned his nursery mate turned into a poxy lady, she immediately phoned to see when is the best time for her to come over with Alfie, as for boys it's always the best to go through the varicella ordeal early in life (it does not decimate kids as much as adults) with a smaller chance of complications and in the controlled environment.

All of us adults(grrr I hate to be considered a part of that category) felt safe around poor Alfie, as we all have been through it before, and just when things started looking up for the boy and his mum (the week-long quarantine being as tough on Emma as on the poxed-up toddler), boom wham snap, I came up with a nasty-horrible-not-good-very-bad outbreak starting with a night shivers and fever on Friday, feeling run down on my Saturday visit to Gills' and noticing few tiny little blisters looking rather beautifully like a drop of morning dew on the rose petal, only to turn into a goblin like monster overnight.

The kind doctor suggested on the fourth day I've probably been through the worst and except for not scratching and trying to stay mentally sane in my isolation, there's not much to do. She gave me a prescription for some steroid lozenges as my gums were covered in sores too (yes, chicken pox really do not discriminate and you'd be surprise the places you discover blisters at) and said to stay in a quarantine until I scab over as the varicella is in a same category as Ebola in how contagious it is. Apparently 9 out of 10 people who just pass you on the street will get it, so I do appologise for everyone I could have infected on this trip to the clinic, especially the poor Uber driver who attempted his best in terms of a casual chat, but in my current state starting with "How is your day going?" I could only reply honestly "Very bad to tragic."

After having a little meltdown about the state of my face and torso following a severe bout of chicken pox, and being told it can take up to six months for my body to deal with both the external and internal damage caused by the virus, I came to a conclusion all my future happiness and any prospects on marriage depends heavily on whether you can get a diamond peel on NHS.

But as I believe everything happens at the right time and for the good reason, I can only take this as my friend Tereza suggested, as a lesson to show me that a human body is not only an instrument to sculpt the muscles on and fine-tweak little things with £6 at-home-teeth-bleaching-kit from Amazon and £10 hyaluronic acid under eye treatment from Ebay. That it is, in fact, a complex fragile system that can be completely thrown out of balance for weeks or months to come by a nasty virus, and instead of thinking which facial serum is the best, or stressing about an egomaniac colleague at work whom I had an argument that's now being widely referred to as 'the Friday incident', I'll have to now take weeks to just be kind to myself, slather my face and torso in vitamin E oil twice a day and hope that eventually I'll heal completely with no scars, building my immunity and physical fitness back one step at a time.

And as there's a silver lining in everything, Emma thought my swelled poxed-up face made me look like Klingons in Star Trek, which cmon' is very cool especially given that the Halloween is approaching, and than there are those friends, who come to cheer you up and take care of you regardless all the 'I'm highly contagious' and 'there's no way you see me looking like this' objections, bring flowers, pizza, introduce you to Death Note anime and help to cover your spots on back with a healing lotion. Yep, the true nature of people and relationships do get indeed revealed in the time of need.

So big thanks to that awful despicable virus for making me realise how blessed I am to have people like this in my life.