MediCentre

So, who gets to have the experience of going to the doctor in London… twice?? ME!!

I had been having these incredibly painful spasms in my back, painful enough that I sometimes couldn’t breathe and it just hurt… really really bad. Probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I tried to just tough it out for a couple days, thinking it was maybe a cramp or something… ate a lot of bananas, and still, it kept getting worse. Finally on Saturday I called “SOS” (that the Church/BYU goes through) to see what doctor I should go to, and they told me to go to the Medicenter at Victoria Station (yes, it is in the train/Tube station). And so I did. The doctor said that she thought I pulled a muscle, so she gave me some heavy duty pain killers and muscle relaxers (Valium and Codiene). I left, still in a lot of pain, but really glad I had something that would help. (PS- in the Tube station, a bunch of Americans asked me for directions and were surprised that I wasn’t a Londoner… that’s a huuuuge compliment to us and kind of made my day. Haha)

The Valium made me crazy. My emotions were out of control and I would cry on the slightest provocation (like someone coming in and putting a hat on my head???). Everyone thought I looked like I was on drugs, and when I videochatted home that first night, Dad and Taylor couldn’t keep back the laughs because of how stoned I looked. The medicine was terrible.

So, my back still hurt and the next day, a small rash started. I thought it was just a reaction from my meds (because of the warnings on the box). Nope. The next day the rash was really big, and so I called Mom and Dad and told them about it. Mom immediately thought it was Shingles, which immediately set off my tears once again. I guess that the same kind of thing happened to my grandma last year, with the back pain and the rash and stuff. So… I went and talked to the professors and stuff and decided to go back to the Medicenter. Lo and behold, it was Shingles. I got different meds (a five-a-day for five days Anti-Viral and some anti-anxiety medicine (since Shingles is a virus in the nerves). From my understanding, for those of you who don’t understand Shingles, when you get Chicken Pox, the virus kind of stays with you lying dormant in your nerves. A lapse in the immune system (often caused by stress, which I think is the cause in my case because school and everything got SOO stressful here), lets out the virus, which shows itself as a really painful blistery rash and nerve pain (which explains the back spasms). So… yah. I have shingles. In London no less.