the alien within

A few years back I did something a little stupid. We have this 150 year old basement that really needed to be cleaned out, so I thought, so one late fall Saturday I spent the morning with a shop vac cleaning the dark crevices of the dungeon. Built with field stone, our basement has loose lime mortar (practically dust), some asbestos tape around the duct work, probably some mold, coal dust from the old furnace and no doubt lead dust from the poor job of painting that was attempted maybe 50 years ago. With shop vac in hand, one could barely see their way as clouds of dust lofted through the basement air. This is what we preservationists call collateral damage.

And I, without a dust mask.

After I was done, and after much coughing and gasping, I noticed late that afternoon that a peculiar rash had developed on my chest. Hmmm, this is odd, never had a rash before. So I called my doctor friend who said, well, with all that stuff floating around, you probably got some of it irritating the skin. OK, that sounded logical.

But then the rash showed two more times while fighting off some flu symptoms-at which the doctor investigated, but figured it was just a reaction to the fever. And then it showed up again last week...this time I really didn't feel sick. The odd thing about this rash is that it clearly is not topical, but a reaction under the skin........and the other thing is that it shows up in random large areas perfectly symmetrical across my chest and back.

So, now starting to become a little more concerned (I wanted to be certain that I was not contagious to the poor folks who crashed here last week when their gas had to be turned off), I contacted the doc again and this time he asked me to email pictures. He said the pics were confusing. The rash lasted about 2 days, as it normally does...it doesn't itch or burn...it's just there. So, I went on WebMD....which was confusing to me, but offers a way to send in pictures, so I'm thinking about it. WebMD is a dangerous thing really.

The next time I plan to try to connect the dots to see if there is a message. But what I'm really hoping for is the image of the Virgin Mary to appear so that I can charge people to take off my shirt. I am a little freaked that some kind of microscopic bug has taken up residence in this host and gets a little agitated whenever I spike a fever.

And I always wear a dust mask now.....to keep out the little bugger's alien friends.