Cold sore

I feel I am entitled to a little hypochondria here.

All that stress with M. being hospitalised etc. (see posting below) lowered my resistance. In the days that followed I developed, with no other symptoms and for the first time in my life, a labial herpes also known as a cold sore.

So this is a herpes on the lip, in the right hand corner of my mouth (so this picture is not me; thank you Stanford University). Basically I have a venereal disease without having sinned (honestly!). I don't even want to think of this thing being on other, more private parts, yuck (lots of pictures to be found of that too, but I won't turn this blog into a freak show, at least not yet).

I never knew these things could hurt so much. I thought they only look disgusting. So now I know they look disgusting, radiate pain to the rest of one's face, and are contagious, which has a marked effect on people's willingness to cuddle. As we're in a very French context, with women kissing you all the time to say hello and goodbye (lots of lovely women here, so this is a cultural thing I've taken up with some zeal), I have been feeling like a social outcast for two weeks now.

This cold sore won't heal properly, like any wound out here in the tropics (eg mosquito bites). The good doctors of the same local clinic where M. had his surgery prescribed me antibiotics (flucloxacillin) and a cream, Niflugel, that burnt like hell (when I read the information leaflet it said it was to be applied on sprained ankles and tendinitis?!). All utterly useless, the sore remained.

Another doctor has now prescribed aciclovir cream. But that sore's still there, and A. won't touch me with a barge pole. I'm a modern day leper.