always a bright side

So I was just noticing that scratching itches nowadays just feels so good. So good, unfortunately, that I now do very little else, and I may be in danger of scratching off all my skin altogether. So I have to stop myself, so that I can do all the other important things in life, like scratching my husband's head instead.

But it's an effort. I'm talking about the kind of satisfying scratching that gives you a whole reason for being, just in itself. I just don't see any reason to ever do anything else.

This, too, is a side-effect of the chemo. In my case the itching began about two weeks after the chemo and radiation were over. I don't know what causes it, but it's very common. My itches come in blocks for short periods of time, and they moves around on my body. So first my legs will itch, and then a few minutes later it will be my back, and so on. This sounds bad, but in all honesty it just feels so good to scratch the itchy places, in that I'm-not-sure-anything-ever-felt-so-good kind of way. The only thing is that it's an all-consuming kind of itch and scratching, where you can't really concentrate on anything else and all day long you're sitting around thinking about how much you'd like to scratch something. You could spend your whole day doing it.

I'm feeling much, much better now, btw. Those antibiotics really work. I wrote another blog posting about my stomach ailment--a pretty funny one, if I do say so myself--but unfortunately it was a little too graphic for a blog site authored by a prim medieval professor. Perhaps I shall send it off to some guy-type magazine, the kind that has an audience that truly appreciates such things.

My students, on the other hand, would probably prefer to be spared.