Remember how I mentioned not washing my hair at the hotel Saturday afternoon…? Well…
Sunday morning we were up around 8 AM I felt pretty sluggish. My head was pounding at around 6 AM, most likely from the alcohol, and I felt a little dehydrated, but water took care of that. I texted people, organizing a brunch and we lazed around until 9:30 AM or so. I felt great.
I showered around 9:30, making use of the hotel shampoo. A very short time later, I noticed some swelling around the inner corner of my right eye. It didn’t hurt, didn’t itch, but swollen it was nonetheless. I also started feeling hot–feverishly hot, in fact, but I kept it to myself initially. We waited.
Shortly before heading down the lobby at 10:30, I finally asked Kelly if she thought it was hot in our little room. She said no, and I was pretty sure something was wrong. She felt me head and agreed that I was more or less burning up. I felt nauseous and just wanted to lie still, but the show must go on, so we headed downstairs to meet people, and bring the luggage of those who had already checked out up to our room.
Eric joked about me wearing sunglasses, but when I took them off and he saw my eye, he stopped joking. By this time, I had cooled off but now felt chills and I knew I couldn’t go out to breakfast with the group. I still wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. I assumed it was pink eye, or something. However, I had an itch on my right rib cage as we approached the elevator. I pulled up my shirt to find a nice sized hive there. Believe it or not, I was mildly relieved because at least I was pretty certain it was an allergic reaction to something. The only thing that we could deduce would cause this was the shampoo in the hotel room.
I was talked into walking around the block to where everyone was having breakfast and I must admit the cool air felt good. But it was stuffy in the restaurant and I wanted to lay back in bed for while. Over my feeble protests, Kelly came with me, and with all my clothes and shoes on, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to lay perfectly still. Fever and nausea came in ever receding waves. Finally, at noon, we collected all of the luggage and headed downstairs. I got Kelly in a cab to the airport (she was heading of on a business trip) and we said goodbye to Eric, Ryane, Norm and Vicky. Then Jen, Jason, Lisa, AJ and Denisse took cabs up to Jen and Jason’s place where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon.
Within minutes of my taking Benedryl, all of the bad feelings, hives and eye swelling went away. I wasn’t sure about driving, but we ate some pizza before leaving and I felt much better. Doug and Rachel came over–Doug with very little memory of the evening before, I should add–and we got to say goodbye to them too. We picked up the car, and I drove to Newark Airport to drop Lisa off. Shortly thereafter, I let A.J. drive the rest of the way home.
I was home at around 7:30 and I felt so much better. I called Mom and Dad, opened a few remaining gifts I received (including the BBC DVD series “Planet Earth” from Norm and Vicky), cleaned up the house a bit and got ready for bed. I spoke to Kelly briefly and then turned in for the night.
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