I am a magnet for weird ailments. After returning from a trip to Monterey with the boy (which included a side trip for a mariachi rampage thru San Fran for Normal's birthday), I came down with food poisoning. Immediately after that settled down, my neck swelled up and all my joints began to ache. For two days the doctors didn't know what it was, but now things are beginning to look as though it's some wacko immune reaction to medication I was on for asthma. I've been given vicodin for the splitting pain that results when your neck is being blown up from the inside, antibitoics to keep down any risk of infection, and black shades to place over my mirrors, because when I see my reflection and observe the giant human toe I've transformed into, I want to cry. Ugh. I look freakish. But the drugs are nice. It's kinda a nice doctor-recommended vacation from my clean-livin' lifestyle.

Still, bleah. It's not like Vicodin is some instant party in a pill. It usually just makes me pukey. I only have negative experiences to associate with it, bad memories of being sick as a kid.