i had shingles once. it was as bad as it sounds. the right side of my torso, scaly and itchy, burned and ached. the itching was unbearable, but scratching made the pain much worse. large, angry white pimples were also spread throughout the nastiness.

at first, i did nothing about it. i figured it would just go away on its own. this had almost always worked in the past when i didn’t feel well.

but this wasn’t going away, it was just getting worse, and i was starting to worry: there was a wrestling show coming up that i had tickets for. so i finally sucked it up and asked my mom to look at it. (i have no explanation for why i didn’t look on the internet. it was right there, and i just didn’t use it.) she took one look at it and knew exactly what it was. she didn’t even hesitate to name it. i asked her how she was so sure, so quickly:

“your grandmother had shingles last year.”

ouch.

i went to the doctor, and he gave me some antivirus stuff and told me to take it easy. i asked him if it was okay if i went to the wrestling show. i told him it was in Chicago and it would be an all-day trip. he said he didn’t recommend it, since i should just rest. i asked him if i would be putting anyone else in danger of, you know, catching shingles. he said no, i’d just be making myself miserable. so i went. it was a wrestling show, and i had front row tickets.

there’s a commercially released video of the show, and you can totally see me. there i am, pale and sweaty, chanting and banging on the barricade. you can probably tell i don’t look right, but you probably wouldn’t guess it’s because, underneath my hoodie, the right side of my body is engulfed in flames. at one point, one of the wrestlers is thrown from the ring and crashes to the floor right in front of me. the guy sitting on my right pours the contents of his $4 bottle of Dasani on him, which earns the guy a thumbs up.

i watched this warrior (the wrestler, not the fan with the bottled water), writhing in pain, willing himself back into battle, desperately pushing himself to continue on in defiance of his physical suffering, and i thought to myself: we are the same. he’s beating himself half to death in a fake fight for almost no money. and i have shingles. i was also really thinking about going to get a $4 bottle of water.

did you know you can get shingles on your face? fucking gross. it can make you go blind. smh.

also, i have gout, which is another old-timey disease. i mean, i have it bad. it must be some hereditary thing, because i don’t eat meat, i don’t drink, i don’t do anything that’s supposed to bring it on, and it’s so bad that i have to take medication to keep from just straight-up having it every single day. fucking ridiculous. no way is that some poetic warrior shit.

i wonder what old-timey 18th century medical condition i can manifest next? dropsy? the grippe? scrofula? the vapors? jungle rot? dandy fever? poor man’s gout? housemaid’s knee? climatic bubo? the staggers? dum-dum fever?