If you look closely at the blog posts I’ve been spewing out lately, you’ll notice that there they have been written around a central, recurring theme: Positivity. (Well not really. I did write about Roach: An Inspiring story about overcoming your fear but that’s pretty much it. I just wanted to throw the bit about the theme in there because us literary types like opening our blog posts with these things we call “intros” which, to you, the “freelance writer” type who gets paid a sad $0.10 per word on blog posts your American employers commission you to write, is the fluff you use to pad your work and increase your word count.)

(This blog post’s word count so far: 113. See what I did there?)

You see, since around July last year, I have been coping with something that has slowly been eating away at me. If you remember, around that time, I got myself a short-lived Gym membership. What I didn’t tell you was that the training program I followed, instead of giving me delts of steel, biceps of romance and clitoris-conquering pecs; gave me some sort of weird skin disease.

Apparently, after sweating it out with squats, rows, and bench presses, you’re supposed to shower or at least wipe the sweat from your body and change into a clean shirt. But, beecause the concept of “hygiene” totally eluded me then, what I did was not shower, changed into shirts I sweated the fuck on from previous gym sessions (which I kept in a leather backpack I store in the trunk of my car) and even went on a month of gymming using only one pair of socks.

At first, the skin disease manifested itself as a patch of rashes on my right shin. I didn’t think any of it until recently when I noticed that the rashes have spread into my left thigh, my tummy, my chest and my upper arms.

Being the son of a pharmaceutical executive, and having learned the awesomeness of self-medication at a very early age, I prescribed myself some benadryl and took some pills labeled “losartan” which I found in a box stored in our garage and decided to wait and see if the pills I took would take care of the rashes.

They didn’t. Because, apparently, losartan is an angiotensin used to treat high blood pressure. Taking these pills seemed to have pissed off the fungi that’s causing my rashes and, several days ago, it punished me by aggressively spreading down my lower abdomen in an attempt to mount a siege and spread to my penis.

(Anyone else getting an erection reading this?)

This made sleeping very difficult for me. Since most of my body constantly and severely itches, I wake up in the middle of the night either applying colgate/lotion/shaving cream/turpentine into the affected regions of my body or just thrashing around violently scratching myself all over.

(Seriously, I’m surprised no one has asked me to have sex with them at this point)

Today, faced with the imminent threat of my lower abdominal rash spreading to my penis, I decided to seek professional medical help. After living with these rashes for over a year now, I have finally decided to stand up and say “Enough!”

Although, for some odd reason, I feel like I will miss the rashes when they’re gone in a weird medical version of Stockholm, I simply cannot live with just getting three hours of sleep a night without taking more drugs–this time, ones that are in powder form and are illegal. Nobody wins if I do.

My appointment with the Dermatologist is on Saturday. And really, I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes a look at the extent to which my rashes have spread and tells me to wait in the room while she gets something from the pharmacy. Five minutes later, an orderly wielding a shotgun steps into the room and gives me a buckshot to the face without preamble. Because really, seeing my rashes as they are today leads me to believe that it’s so severe that I need to be “put to sleep” and my body cremated ASAP.

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