I drove up with my parents on Friday and we stayed in their camper at a campground just a few miles from my uncle's house. It was July, so naturally it was hot and humid. Once we got to the campground and started hooking things up and unpacking, I realized that I hadn’t brought anything to drink with me. So I walked down to the tiny campground store where they had one fridge filled with a total mishmash of alcohol. I grabbed a 4 pack of yummy looking hard cider, paid, then walked back to our site. At this point I was sweating, so of course I was also itchy. The AC was running in the camper but it hadn’t really cooled it down yet. I chugged my cold cider and tried to cool down.
At that point I decided to go outside and realized that the humidity was mostly gone and there was a bit of a breeze (perks to being near the ocean). So the itching finally subsided and that was it.
The next day, Saturday, was the cookout! We got to my uncle's and I was having a great time catching up with everyone. It was sunny and warm, but really wasn’t too bad (especially after my cousin Mike nicely gave up his seat in the shade for me). There were ominous looking clouds during the day and by the time we had finished eating and cleaned up, the dark clouds were right above us. So we all grabbed whatever we could and brought it all inside right before the thunder and lightning started, and then the downpour!
We hung out inside eating dessert and chatting while the younger cousins argued over whose turn it was to hold my 7 month old niece.
With the AC on I actually got a bit chilly, so I changed into the leggings I had brought (typically we’re outside well into the night playing various games and getting eaten alive by bugs, so I brought leggings to protect my legs from bug bites). After changing I noticed that my dad, brother, and some of my older cousins were out on the front porch watching the storm. The porch was covered, so I figured I’d be fine going out there since I wouldn’t get wet. After a while my legs, ankles, and even the tops of my feet started itching like crazy. I was thinking that it was from bug bites, so I scratched them. I was scratching at my leggings trying to relieve the itch, but it wasn’t going away.
By the time we got to the truck to go back to the camper I was absolutely miserable! I was so itchy I was ready to cry!
Got in the camper and I immediately took off my leggings and put pajama shorts on, then took 3 Benadryl pills (I’ve taken them for so long that one pill has zero affect on me). The Benadryl helped and I was able to fall asleep.
We drove home the next day, Sunday, but it wasn’t until about Tuesday when I realized the damage I had done to my legs. I’m trying to learn guitar, so my nails are very short at the moment. Which also meant that I was applying more pressure than usual while scratching at my legs on Saturday night.
I was checking out how awful my legs looked and realized that I didn’t have a single bug bite anywhere. The cause of my incredible itching was just being outside where it was humid and raining (even though I wasn’t actually in the rain). This realization was so disheartening...one more thing to add to my endless list of things to avoid. And of course with it being hot this week, I was wearing shorts every day, so everyone got to see how awful my legs looked. When I was asked about it I didn’t even know what to say because I was definitely not in the mood to explain not only my AP, but also how it managed to cause my legs to look as bad as they did (as bad as they do...it hasn’t gone away yet)!
So here are the pictures you’ve been waiting for...the physical aftermath of an AP episode!
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