Sun Poisoning

A word to the wise (because you are all wiser than I). When you go for a walk, when you go outside:

Wear a hat,
and slip, slop, slap!

The other day when I went for a walk to Bondi Beach, admittedly I had only planned to be in the sun for a little more than an hour. And if things had of gone to plan, that might have been ok. But in the end I spent many hours in the sun… Too many hours. Too many hours without a hat, too many hours without a long sleeved shirt, and too many hours without some sunscreen.

You guessed it, it was a Sydney bright, hot, cloudless, sunny summer day. I got burnt to a cinder! I wore a singlet, and my shoulders got burnt beyond belief. The pain over the last week has been intense. Not being able to sleep on either side (as I normally do) has made sleep restless. Laying still on my back is uncomforting at best, but just the slightest roll in any direction made me soon realise how bad my shoulders were. Luckily the backs of the shoulders were bearable otherwise I would have been in real trouble.

Naturally enough the shoulders blistered up. They were tiny blisters and hundreds of them. The other night I was walking out the balcony door while on the phone and was not concentrating… I fell to one side and scrapped my left shoulder on the door. Imagine a hard metal object running along the side of a thousand blisters.

Some of them popped, but most of them formed about 7-8 larger ones. Very large blisters that now were putting pressure on my skin. Over the next few days most of these popped and now I am back to a few low lying blisters that seem to be ok. My skin is almost back to a touchable stage.

I have been pumping Aloe Vera and a local anesthetic onto my shoulders, which has seemed to help. But I have learned my lesson, next time:

SLIP, SLOP, SLAP!

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