Sunburn
Usually, I do not sunburn badly. So when I took off my shirt on Saturday while playing ultimate to stay cool during the hottest day of the year so far, I thought little of the red glow I acquired in the process. I thought little of it, that is, until yesterday, at about 1:00pm. At that time, over the course of just a few minutes, my sunburned back went from a mostly comfortable tenderness to a burning volcano of firery indignation. Lava boiled from within my back like needles threading their way between the layers of my skin. I convulsed and contorted, pricked by the searing itch inside. Anyone who might have seen me would have surely thought I was having some sort of seizure. It was, I am convinced, the most physically unfomfortable I have ever been in my entire life.
Scratching brought only temporary, painful relief. Aloe Vera, Hydrocortisone, and Vitamin E, applied in frenzies of itch-induced rage, only exacerbated the symptoms. I found extended relief in a shower, with water gently massaging the entire affected area. However, only after steeling my resolve, asking for divine intervention, and, against all odds, defying the urge for temporary relief by, among other things, pounding a carpetted floor with all my strength and walking backwards while reading the comics, was I able to find relief outside of the shower.
The erruption slowly subsided, and soon I was able to funcation as a normal human being once again. However, all of my resolve to actually complete homework, for example, was drained. It was a terribly non-productive day. I failed on all four of my resolutions. Sunday, on the other hand, had gone quite well, missing only the push-ups part of the exercise routine. Welcome to the roller coaster ride that is my life.
May 31st, 2005 at 02:30:43 pm
I know exactly how you feel. I had a similar entry in my LiveJournal from about a year ago describing it. It wasn’t so much the burn that I hated as it was the itch, the goddamned awful itch. I would have accepted burn any day compared to the intolerable subtlety of the itch. My body convulsed with discomfort, and only spending all day in the shower would have brought some form of relief.
Nothing worked. At one point, my body was smeared with mustard, vinegar at another point. Nothing worked.
Finally I took a very powerful sleeping pill. It knocked me on my ass, and I woke up the next day very relieved.
As you said, it was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in my life.