Max with his bass fiddle.

Shiver Me Shingles!

The evening of April 23, Margaret was having a strange tingling sensation in her chin. During the night it crept up her face and into her ear. By the next morning she was in a lot of pain on the rt. side of her face and extremely sensitive to sound. We thought, migraine. By Friday morning, I didn't know what it was- just very painful, and she encouraged us to go the homeschool conference. She was so sensitive to noise that she needed us to go. Rebekah stayed with her and auntie Sarah checked in on her. 

While at the conference that day, I was explaining it to an acquaintance who mentioned Shingles as a possibility- if only there was blistering. Well, I texted Auntie and asked if there were blisters and she said ," no" , but went back in to double check. Sure enough, the blisters were beginning to form. Sarah took her to urgent care and then to Walmart for prescriptions and protein shakes. Margaret had had very little to eat in the last 3 days. She had blisters in her mouth, ear and so on. Anyway, we got home as soon as we could. The doctor had said something about being good that it wasn't in her eye as that would be very serious indeed. 

Next morning, more blisters and a piano competition. She again urged us to go to the conference and grandma and grandpa Eddy hung out with her for the day. I suggested that she should skip the competition and hoped she would. At 5:30 pm, she texted saying that her eye felt tingly and so I called the 24 hour nurse. We did a conference call with her, Greta and myself, and decided urgent care was the place to go again. Since we were an hour and a half away, I tried to keep my emotions in check rather than worry about her becoming blind. However, I did picture her spending the rest of her life with a pirates patch over her right eye and saying, "aye aye, Captian." whenever I asked her to do something.

 The doctor there said that her eye was fine and that it would be obvious if it was affected. We were, meanwhile, trying to get back to PO to be there. By the way, she got first place in the piano competition. Crazy girl. She couldn't open her mouth, but last night she said that if she could have, she would have given Winston Churchills speech, " This is my finest hour..." when she went up to collect her prize.

Margaret has more determination than most, I'll just say. 

On our way home from the conference that night, thinking that Margaret could loose vision in her eye was a very hard thing, but I knew it was in Gods hands and a lot of people were praying for her. It took about a month for her to get back to normal and she lost a month of schoolwork. It seems like she is back to normal now and I have learned about some natural ways to manage the recovery of shingles. Though nothing really worked for her natural or conventionally, I've read about some Essential Oils that have helped many people.  At present, we are having her take cayenne pepper in a capsule every day for a month in hopes that it will actually kill the virus. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time before the shingles resurfaces. If you have ever had shingles, it never goes away. The prescriptions medications can only reduce pain and possibly speed recovery. The virus does not die. At least try taking the cayenne pepper. It's certainly worth a shot.