Punched Out

So for those of you who get cold sores you will appreciate this entry... for those of you who don't, well this one's not for you. I get cold sores and not just the ones that go away in a couple of days but the ones that take at least two weeks to fully heal and usually blow up to the size of Mt. St. Helen. Everything under the sun, including the sun, triggers the tiny little blisters to appear that later explode into monstrous craters. Now some of you might be thinking gross. Cold sores are so gross! I bet you are the people who don't get them because you obviously haven't thought through the fact that we, the people who do get them, don't want to get them and we don't like to be treated like lepers when we do have them!!

With all this in mind let me tell you about my latest bout with the Herp. I was sitting in a meeting a week ago and I start to notice a bit of a tingle. I reached up to feel the area and of course my lip was hot and I could feel the trouble brewing below. Of course when you are getting a cold sore you are like a moth to a flame. You can't stop touching it to get a feel of what is really happening, like the rate of growth, the hotness factor, and how wide spread it is getting. This one I could feel would be a doozy. By the time the hour meeting had concluded I was already afraid to look in the mirror. I now had a visible lump on my top lip that was growing exponentially by the second. Well the only thing I could do at this point is to basically 'stop the bleeding.' As soon as I got back to my desk I dove for my purse and viciously rummaged through praying I had stashed a tube of Blistex in there from my last outbreak. Thankfully, I was in luck! I applied a glob as quick as I could in an effort to maybe slow down the rate of growth. Once these things pop though they are like a run away freight train.. things may slow it down but it isn't going to stop until it has run it's course. By the time I had left for the day my lip was so big it was starting to swell beyond it's normal limits. By the time I had woke up the next day it had looked like I had been punched out in a hockey brawl. My lip was soo big that it actually hung down now on my front right tooth. I mean how embarrassing!! What do you chose to wear when you know no one will care about your outfit and will only be staring at your lip trying to decide if you have been in a bar fight or you have domestic violence issues at home. To top it off, that day I had a group meeting with our Controller to give him an update on the progress we have been making. I decided on a smart outfit with my new glasses hoping that everyone would focus on them and matching blazer instead of my still increasing lip. I vowed myself not to smile since when I did my lip covered most of my upper teeth on the right side of my mouth.... but if you know me, you know that this would be a hard challenge.

I dawn the doors of work with my head held high thinking that maybe no one would notice. When I got up to my floor though my hopes came crashing down. Everyone I know who passed flattened their lips and morphed them into a half frown which came off looking surprised/disgusted or commented with, ooooo, aaawwww, or OUCH! Some even said, "Oh my gosh what HAPPENED?" Those who I don't know particularly well also gave stricken expressions. At 9am I trudged down to my big meeting hoping that everyone would just be excited about my work and overlook the lip that looked as though it might bust out of it's skin capsule. But how could I have been so foolish? My bosses boss sees me, grabs her own mouth, and yells, "OH MY GOSH! THAT LOOKS BAD!" Seriously. WTF? It is kind of like being pregnant when you feel so self conscious because you are so huge you feel like you are going to burst but instead of just smiling at you when you pass people feel it is their invitation to comment. What I really should have said in retrospect, "What are you talking about? Is there something stuck to my lip?"

In the weeks to come, the swelling went down but then came the cracking, bleeding, healing, cracking.. you get the point. I had a scab that was equally as large as the effected area that now looked like I had been in a hockey fight a couple weeks ago. Maybe I gave off that "Don't mess with me" vibe to strangers who might interpret the lip scab as a sign I was a loose canon.

Let this be a lesson to all of you who don't get cold sores... they suck, we know it... but instead of making us feel like crap why don't you just count yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with one of live's little inconveniences. And to all of you who do get them... well at least you can take comfort in the fact that now you know that either yours aren't as bad as they could be or you aren't the only schmuck who gets mistaken for stealing a portion of Angelina Jolie's lip at various points throughout the year.