The Proof is in the Pictures

For the past three days (Thursday, Friday, and today) I have been watching the children of one of the ladies in our ward. I have tried to take them outside to do fun things with them so they don't get bored. Each day we have gone and played in the sun. Thursday we went to a couple of parks around their house and stayed out for a couple of hours. Friday we went to a bigger and newer park on the other side of town and played outside for another couple of hours. And today we went outside to a local skate park and played for another couple of hours. It has been fun. However, on Thursday I noticed that my arms were breaking out again, so I have been trying to avoid the sun and keep to the shade as much as possible. Today I stayed in the shade for all but fifteen minutes, and for the last hour of the time we were in the park it was nice and cool and cloudy. I just had James take these pictures of my arms to show you all proof of the torture my body experiences when exposed to the sun for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. I promise you I am not making this thing up. I hope they give you a better idea of what the spring and summer are like for me.

The hikes are done

So for those of you who think that I no longer update this blog, you are wrong. I am still alive and have been busy trying to do other things that took my attention away from this. However, suffice it to say that I have decided to make a renewed effort to update this more frequently for the two or three (perhaps it is only one?) of you who like to check in on me every once in a while.

The hikes are off. I'd like to think I truly did my best to hike and enjoy the beautiful area in which I live, and I did have fun, but it's not worth my health anymore. You see, I prefaced my then new idea of hiking ever saturday with the information about my allergy to the sun. Perhaps I was just fooling myself into thinking it would be fine because it is not. Sadly, I am having some serious problems with my arms and hands breaking out after only being in the sun for an extremely short period of time. I thought perhaps the continual exposure to the sun would allow me to lessen the breakouts, but this has backfired...something fierce. I can not be in the sun now, and need to avoid it as much as possible. I don't know for sure what this allergy is caused from though. Some have suggested it might be lupus, some think it's due to lack of sunscreen (which is not true, I use it when I go out into the sun), and others think I am making it up. I went onto WebMD (a very good site information wise, but very bad for trying to check your symptoms because it always says you are dying) and tried to see what information I could find relating to photosensitivity (sensitivity to sun exposure) and found a plethora of things. I've spent the better part of the past few days trying to find out as much information as I can. At this point in time I can safely say I am not going to die, but I do have a couple of rare autoimmune diseases that I was formerly unaware of. :) (That's a joke by the way. Any of you who frequent the webmd website are sure to laugh at that...I hope). Anyway, once I figure out exactly what is going on then I will let you know. Until then, I am perfectly content sitting in my cold, dark apartment while summer activities are in full force around me. God bless the person who invented air conditioning!