Lux et umbra vicissum…

I hate fungus.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I love mushrooms on pizza, in meatloaf, on salads, etc.  They’re healthy and yummy.  I would say that if you start eating them, even if you don’t like them at first, they can grow on you.

But they shouldn’t grow on you.

I don’t remember having problems with fungus before  picking up the newest additions last July, but since then it’s been an almost constant battle.  First it was just that Desta had ringworm and didn’t seem to be able to get rid of all of it.  Even so, the doctors were very hesitant to give her oral medication because it tends to have icky side effects (stomach cramps, etc.).  We smeared her twice a day with anti-fungal creams.  Next Alexis and I picked it up, then Joel.  We smeared away and kept thinking we had gotten rid of it when it would suddenly resurrect. 😛  Part of the problem was that it was harder to remember to keep doing the cream once the itching had stopped.

Anyway, we reached a point where we thought we had finally beat it.  There hadn’t been any instance of it for at least a month which was longer than any of our other breaks.  Then Desta broke out with six or seven spots at once that looked like ringworm, but didn’t act like it.  They had the ring shape, but they didn’t expand.  They definitely itched, I’ll say that much.  We took her to the doctor, but he couldn’t identify them.  We thought maybe it was chicken pox.  We waited.  They cleared up on their own.  Then they came back.  I took her to the allergist.  He decided they were probably eczema (which I do think she has aside from all of our fungal issues.)  Then Branwen had what started as a normal scrape on her knee turn into a bubbly white itchy fungal infection.  Then Charis got fungus between her toes.  (Possibly unrelated, I know, but it’s just part of the whole fungal experience.)  Then I started getting itchy spots again.

At this point, I’m ready to put us all on the oral medication and anti-fungus bomb my house, no matter what the side-effects are!  This itching is torture.

The anti-fungal cream seems to be helping, I just don’t know how we’ll ever know if we’ve actually gotten rid of the darn stuff if it can sit waiting for a whole month before coming back.

In the meantime, I’ll order mushrooms on my pizza.  Somehow it feels like a form of revenge.