bloat on

I'm writing to you with fingers fatter than Scott Savol's. I seriously could put my hands on a plate and surround them with sauerkraut and they'd make for quite an appealing Polish dish. Or I could serve them with potatoes for you Brits who favor bangers and mash.

All of my extremities and joints have ballooned to a freakish size. I woke up this morning in severe pain. I winced as I rolled out of bed and nearly fell over when I tried to walk. I looked down at my feet and my toes were abnormal in size and I was rocking some pretty nasty cankles. To round out the freak show, my knees, elbows and wrists are also all swollen and tender. I'm a mess.

I was in Central Park one day and stopped to pet a long-haired dog. Within an hour, my hand doubled in size. I'm assuming I had a reaction to the dog's hair or flea powder or something. Since all of my extremities and joints looked like that this morning, I decided it was an allergic reaction and took an antihistamine. It didn't help. After clicking around on WebMd and scaring myself silly with self diagnoses, I called my sister, a registered nurse, and she told me to get to a doctor ASAP.

I had to go to a drop-in emergency care facility because I'm in New Jersey this weekend. After waiting an hour, the doctor finally saw me and sent me on my way with a steroid shot, some Allegra, a prescription for Medrol and stern instructions to follow-up with my primary care physician in two to three days. He thinks it's an allergic reaction to something I ate yesterday but if I haven't deflated by Tuesday or Wednesday, I need to get blood work done to rule out rheumatoid arthritis, among other things.

Um, this sucks. But it could be worse I guess. I kinda want to stick a pin in me to see if that will take care of all the extra water I'm lugging around. Alas, I'll just have to wait it out. So if you'll excuse me, I need to go elevate my gross feet.