"Your nose is red!"

A few posts ago, I wrote about a little Spanish boy telling me that my nose was red. ::sigh:: I'll take the time now to explain to those of you who don't know what happened. My sister's bachelorette party took place the week before her wedding, and on May 30 the bridesmaids and Katie trotted on down to a well-known and highly recommended spa for a morning of massages. Well they only had room in the schedule for 5 massages and 1 facial...so I got the facial. I know, I know, that is something that should never be done before a major event. But I'll be honest--I've got great skin. I thought it could handle it, but unfortunately it all goes downhill from there. We don't know what exactly happened but I developed a red mark about the size of the tip of a pencil eraser on my nose the following day. I could have gotten something at the facial itself, or throughout the day after the facial. We went to a groovy hippy bead shop to make necklaces, out to dinner at an awesome Mexican restaurant, and finally spent a few hours on the dance floor at a great club that played 80s and 90s hits. Anyways throughout the week at work it developed into a larger oozing open sore. So in time for the wedding, the maid-of-honor had this huge nasty sore on the side of my nose. Here's a picture of me and Dave at the rehersal dinner:



Want to see it close up???? I thought so!!



I spent most of the weekend trying to angle my face and make sure the camera got my "better side" but I eventually just gave up. Anyways, fast forward almost 2 months through a staph infection diagnosis; an allergic reaction to the antibiotics for the staph; 4 separate cycles of steroids; and finally a referral to a dermatologist. The open sore had turned into a rash(?) that took over the entire right side of my nose, up to the bridge and covering the nostril and showed signs of taking over even more of my "great skin." My nose was red the whole time. Sometimes oozing a yellow fluid. Sometimes dry and scaly. But it was red. Every couple of visitors out on the ships would lecture me on proper sun protection and I wanted to strangle them and throw them overboard. But I didn't, I just smiled and said that it was some sort of strange skin infection (this was especially emphasized after the visitor had thrown their arms around my waist for a "in-my-personal-space" photograph).

The dermatologist has put me on a treatment for ROSACEA which it absolutely is not. There is something there that is causing this, and I'm 100% convinced that when I stop the antibiotics and ointment for ROSACEA the rash (?) that covers my nose will return. At least for the time being, the treatment is working to control the symptoms, and for the first time in almost two months my nose is pink. Not oozing, not scaly, just pink. I'll take it.