Cold, Secondary Infection, and RASH!

** WARNING - this post contains medical content, so if you're not interested, don't read :) **

First, let me preface this with some information - last year on Valentine's day I had an asthma attack and got a horrible case of Bronchitis.

So, about 2 weeks ago I started with this allergy/cold mess. Runny nose, congestion, sore throat, the whole bit. I tried to keep hydrated, took my allergy medicine, and took some sudafed and/or tylenol cold. Just really couldn't shake it. Last Tuesday I blew my nose and the mucous was yellow. Ah great, now there's something else going on. Started coughing too. Great - 5 days before Valentines Day, I really don't want to get bronchitis again!! Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I started to break out into a rash. What??? I never get rashes, I'm not allergic to anything! I was frantically trying to figure out what was causing the rash. No new detergents or soaps, no new medicines. I finally made a doctor's appointment for Friday morning. By Friday, the rash had spread. It started on my hips and had spread up the sides of my back and around my stomach. My doctor told me some stuff I already knew - the cold stuff is a virus, so she can't give me anything for it. She was willing to give me some antibiotics for the secondary infection I probably had on top of the cold that was causing the coughing and yellow mucous. Then she informed me that the rash was VIRAL. Which means - yep, nothing to do for it. She said I'd be looking at about a week with this rash. Aye Carumba!! Today is day 7 of the rash, and it covers me from the backs of my knees up my legs, across my butt (yep, that's fun), up my back, across my stomach, over my shoulders, down my arms to my wrists, and up the back of my neck into about an inch of my hairline. FUN TIMES!!! The best part - it itches like crazy ALL the time. I'm layering on the cortisone cream like 3 times a day and I've taken an oatmeal bath the last 2 nights. This sucks. I can't wait for it to start getting better.

Sorry for the gross-ness that you probably didn't ask for, but I had to get that off my chest.