Imprisonment (aka Hives)

Before I went swimming at Nordbad, I was chilling in my flat, eating a bowl of tom kha gai that I'd made myself (and was pretty damn delicious), and enjoying German-dubbed TV. At some point, I noticed I was developing an itchy red spot above my eye. Having encountered this kind of reaction before, I wasn't particularly worried, dabbed it with some corticosteroid ointment I'd brought from Aus, and chalked it up to a mosquito bite. (I know, mosquitoes in Munich in the middle of Winter. What the hell was I thinking?)


The bump went down, I went off and swam my usual kilometre at Nordbad, and returned home incredibly peckish and decided to polish off more soup, this time supplemented with carbs in the form of pasta bow ties. At about 11:15pm, I noticed my elbows and armpits were developing a slight rash so I dabbed them with corticosteroid. At about 11:30pm it went haywire and I noticed the rash was travelling along my collarbones and about to join up together. It also felt like burning so I removed my jewellery, changed from my shirt to a singlet, and sans hat, gloves and scarf, ran out into the 0C weather in the search of a 24hr Apotheke (pharmacy). 

I made an educated guess that it would be in the direction of a party zone not far from where I live. It was wrong and when I finally reached an Apotheke that had a sign saying where the nearest one was, my frantic condition stopped me from being able to translate it. This is where the lovely and happy/drunken citizens of Munich came to my rescue. Seeing some people outside a bar/pub, I ran over and asked my usual *Entschuldigung, sprechen Sie Englisch?* and they happily translated the sign and explained to me how it works (the pharmacies take turns on who gets to be all-nighters) as well as looking up the location of the closest ones. Thank you, friendly drunk Germans! I raced off to the closest one to my place which turned out to be in the opposite direction of where I'd run. The pharmacist took a long time answering the bell asking for help (it was around midnight at this point) and some other random German asked if I was alright and gave me the translation/pronounciation for antihistamine (turns out it's antihistamin-ah). I swallowed one quickly and headed back home. Two hours later, the rash had pretty much spread all over me, joining up over my back and chest, and started up over my wrists which nearly joined up to my elbows so that I was wearing a burning red shirt. I decided it was time to go to the hospital.


This time I was properly dressed so I didn't look so frantic as before, and in fact, when I jumped into a cab and asked to be taken to the Krankenhaus (hospital), the driver was a bit surprised. I showed him my collarbones/neck and he said what I think was the equivalent of *HOLY SHIT!!!* The funny thing was by the time I made to Emergency, I actually felt a bit better and considered going home, but then thought I'd made the effort to come, I may as well check myself in. After an amusing pantomime conversation with the security guard, I was admitted and pumped full of cortisone, antihistamines, and had some blood taken for tests. Here's some photos of what I looked like:

Note the classic raised wheals in my armpit

My elbow rash trying to join up with my wrist rash.

When I woke up around 7am, the rash was completely gone and I wanted to check myself out - I had a full day of experiments planned. The doctors were a bit *WTF?!* and asked me to go to Dermatology and talk to the specialists there about my madness. I got the same reaction there and so when I rang work to tell them what had happpened and they begged me to stay, I ended up staying after they connected me to an IV drip. 

Pooey finds this incredibly funny.

At 4pm, my doctor said the results of my blood test had come back showing I was perfectly healthy with all my results being wonderfully within the normal zone - except for my blood glucose (remember, I'd eaten a bowl of pasta and soup before they took that reading!) - and since the rash wasn't there, they couldn't keep me there. I was however warned to come back if the rash came back.


Needless to say, it did come back during the night. I examined myself in the morning noting I was a pink marshmallow but my breathing was fine so having confirmed that I wasn't dying, I went to work. They took one look at me and begged me to go back (quote: Your earlobes scare me, they are red! Please go to hospital, we don't want to tell Australia that we killed you). I went back, met the same specialist (quote: I told you it would come back!) who promptly put me back on the antihistamine drip, then doubled the dosage later when the rash spread over my face. Thus began my second incarceration.


And when I say I was in prison, it really was like I was in prison, except prisoners are allowed to spend a portion of their day outside, wash their hair, and have a variety of foods. (Random fact - Pooey also told me prisoners in Norway are allowed to spend time with dogs). Because I was hooked up to the drip, I wasn't allowed to get my arm wet meaning I couldn't shower, and was fed only rice and potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the extent that the 85-year old woman I shared my cell with asked me if I was a vegetarian. I dreamed of meals of French cuisine and looked at other peoples (not particularly appetising) meals with envy. I couldn't even have butter, salt, or pepper with my carbs and carbs! I was later shifted to a room with a 27-yo (Anni) and when she went to get some more bread to go with her dinner, she was instructed not to share any of her meal with me! There was one television in the communal patients room which seemed to be permanently surrounded by old men watching the Biathlon (apparently a German man won for the first time in years?), although Anni and I managed to grab it and watch the second half of Tropic Thunder. I also started doing an ancient jigsaw that I quickly established was missing quite a few of it's original 1000 pieces, much to the amusement of the TV audience who would come up, say a few words in Deutsch, laugh when I said I spoke kein Deutsch, and then walk away.

Eventually, it was conceded that the barrage of tests conducted on me had proven that I was EXCEEDINGLY HEALTHY, and that since the rash had subsided and didn't come back 24hr after they changed my drip to plain Ringers, I was free to go. I tried to restrain my happiness for Anni (she was told she might be allowed to go on the weekend, maybe) and we impatiently waited for someone to remove my drip. As soon as it was out, Anni gave me some of the best chocolate of my life. Okay, it was just Moser Roth but hey, something! This experience has taught me that I am not to be taken to hospital unless I am dying. And even then, I think I'd rather die than be made to stay in hospital for 4 days again. Please.