Tongue Nasty (NSFW?)

tongue nasty (NSFW?)

This is dead skin on my tongue. The pink part in the middle is where i scraped off some of it, exposing the flesh below. It is pretty revolting. The most bizarre part is that most of the patches have a ‘breathing hole’ — a hole in the middle that extends through to the new skin below. I hope my molting finishes soon.

I scraped at it a bit, and pulled off a bunch of clearly dead skin. But the next day it was back (and hurt more.)

Current Skin Conditions

Eye Eczema

Eye Eczema

My eyes flake and crack at the folds. This is a pretty average state of affairs. It is better at times, and worse at others. It goes up and down every few days. Normally this is treated with a steroidal cream, but I am not allowed to take steroids. So I just have to grease my eyes up as much as I can

Leg Lesions

I can’t seem to get a really good picture of how messed up my legs are. They look like I have been sleeping with some blood sucking insects. For weeks. They are just covered with these semi-open, semi-healed wounds. And I have scratching problems, so they keep being reopened.

A list of Side Effects

A list of Side Effects that I have to tell my various doctors about.  Compiled with O’s help.

  1. muscle aches (strained bicep)
  2. joint pain
  3. Finger nails are not growing in thick enough
  4. lip and tongue cuts
  5. infected lesions in ear canals
  6. nose crusties
  7. bloody noses
  8. nose infection/pain
  9. memory problems (persistent)
  10. slurring of speech
  11. loss of balance/falling
  12. ongoing lesions (legs, arms)
  13. hair loss
  14. libido
  15. irritability + spaciness VS indifference + apathy
  16. loss of appetite
  17. broken tooth

I’ve never been happier about a runny nose

I got a humidifier yesterday.  I put about a gallon of water into the air of my little apartment, and fell asleep.

When I woke up my nose was moist, if a little runny.  So much better than the barren desert craggy nasty bloody snot crust lesions I have spent the last two months waking up to.

nice mental image, eh?

Dysesthesia, or knowing the words

I went to the dermatologist, who called the flaking on my eyes Eczema.  He called the lesions on my genitals something else (I forget).  He gave me a cream for both.  And told me to take Zyrtec for my itching.

And he gave me a name for my pins and needles: Dysesthesia.  He said that he has seen it in IFN cases. And he also mentioned some drug that may be useful in treating it.  But then backed off, and said I should ask my Oncologist, because it was out of his purview.  I forgot the name of the drug.

It feels really good to have a name for this mysterious side effect.  And a wikipedia page.  That helps too.

The Taste of Blood

It is 7:45 on Saturday morning, and I can’t get the taste of blood out of my mouth.  I had awful dreams last night, including a kid who had his classmates pee all over him, then set himself on fire (and died) all for a youtube video, my girlfriend calmly explaining that she had been sleeping with a 17 year old (but she had realized he wasn’t the one for her), and having to sit through an awful experimental noise music performance, and then blood.  Dreaming of blood.  Dreaming of drowning in blood.

I think that part of your brain that thinks “wait! this might be real!” kicked in.  It is the same one that kicks in when you are having a dream about peeing.  It kicked in, and i woke up coughing up blood.  It was dark in the room, but i could tell the darkness of the blood against the white tissue I rubbed against my mouth.

I have been having lesions in my nose for a couple of weeks.  They don’t heal, but they produce these hard angular scab crusts, which often dissolve when I neti.  It is raw and painful.  Hard to breath at times.  And quite noisy.

I spat out a lot of the blood into tissues, and held my nose where the blood was coming from.  The jagged scabs made it quite painful.  I filled five tissues with coughed up blood.  I ate cereal. And I still have the taste in my mouth.  I wonder how long I was bleeding before I woke up?