Bad week

Rosacea works in mysterious ways..  I was doing well the last time, in the sense that I could keep my skin calm when I avoided triggers, stayed cool and didn't do too many outrageous things. I have been at home again, and not at friends home or mothers place or dad's place and I am a red hot mess again for the last week. It happens every single time, and it is pretty depressing. I have made lists with suspicious factors that could be at play but am still wondering. The weather is windy and cold, that could be a trigger (check), I haven't eaten completely dairy-/ gluten-/ sugar free either. But that wasn't an issue lately, and I actually started to think that the rice products I used to eat made me worse flushing wise in fact. Still I count it as a semi check. I have an old piano in my home, and it oozes these old piano's smells. Nice smells but maybe it triggers some allergy again.... I traveled a lot and been out and about in the cold wind. And I might have become very paranoid here, but I can't completely ignore my suspicion towards all the wifi-connections that are going through my home from left, right, top, and even further neighbors. I always shut the wifi off at night and my parents have free standing houses with no other wifi lines coming through. Here I have about 20 that my pc can pick up. There is no scientific proof for this, I am most likely making it up in my head, but I still consider it an option. Been out with a friend yesterday and we strolled around in town, took her son to a café for drinks and I was glowing and burning and red all the time. The weather was nice and cool and I really am unsure why it is like this again after a relatively calm summer. Tonight I have a concert, Keane. I looked forward to it but am still in bed cooling my face right now and I will have to pick up my sisters car soon. I need to bike about 30 minutes for that and I dread the wind and having to take the burned up face I already have now out. Then 2 hours drive in the car to another city to park and pick up a friend, then the train and subway to the venue. I think it is a safe bet now that by then I am bright red :( And then a hot concert hall and the travel back home. I am dreading it!!! Will bring cold packs and ice cubes but I feel hesitant to tell my friend too much about the burning and pain right now. Am very happy that she will come along. She wanted to have dinner first together but I said I would eat something at home. I will be even more sore and red probably if I do that. Aaarrrrggggghhhhhhhh, I just want to cut my cheeks off right now. I once asked a doctor, when going half bonkers over the ongoing flushing and heat, if I could have a skin transplant, perhaps? Really not? Nope. The blood vessels would soon have the same dilating problems, as the problem comes from within he said.

On top of that, two aunts of me commented 2 weeks ago on how 'healthy and full figured' I looked. They are stick thin themselves and even though I shrugged it off and gave them a look as if I was merely interested in more existential matters, it did bother me of course deep down..  It was fairly clear as well that the 'healthy full figure' comment was an understatement in their book. Mum came to my defense and said with a meaningful look, "medicine you know". But still, maybe that dismisses me of being a porky pork who eats all day, it still is clear as day that I have let it come to this. I could have refused to eat all together. I could have worked out all day. They would have, if they were in my situation, that was another thing that became clear from their expressions. The silly thing is that my friend thinks I look great. He always says he likes me better now than 'normal' (which is THIN). I believe it for a moment, until someone makes a comment, no matter how innocent. I can then have my inner debate, recall the redness burning hellish scenario in my head where I will be in without the meds, but for some reason there is always a problem in my life; when the flushing has kept itself quiet for a little while, my brain will zap to the next problem in line. So that is not being thin anymore, not having babies, not this or that. I'm sure it's just this age of mine and in due time I'll be all zen and accepting and content. My friend yesterday made an innocent comment about the people in her surroundings that are taking prozac. Quite a few, if I can believe her. She called it the 'prozac face', and said she could often easily recognize the antidepressant users by their 'hamster cheeks'. I laughed, I call myself The Chipmunk often, and said, laughing, 'yeah like me'. "Nooo, I didn't mean you silly!". That was very sweet, she is a very sweet friend but well, deep down we both know it includes me too :)  Luckily I have people around me who seem to love me regardless (awww, pass the bucket) and that is a massive reassurance. But first I have to survive today. My face looks puffy and sore, very red and it is hot to the touch. I can't hide it and I can't cancel the concert anymore... Wish me good luck.

Update, 14 hours later:  the concert was ok. I have seen them better, but that is mostly because I liked their first album and the first concerts they gave best. My skin was a nightmare all day and evening. My sisters was so nice to borrow me her car. However, it's the car where her massive dog is driven around in so it was covered and covered in dog hair :) She also had lovely car perfume stacked in it, with a very poignant vanilla scent that was impossible to lose, even with the windows open and the perfume item itself out of the car. Maybe those two factors played a role, but I had a red face to start with. Was swollen and flushed and red and burning all through the concert. Sucked on my ice cubes and that helped slightly to at least not feel hot all over. I tried to ignore it and have a good time with my friend, and thank god she seemed to enjoy it. Been on the road 6 hours for it and of course by the time I got home, around 3 o'clock in the morning, the flush subsided :) Something else that lifted my spirits was a cat I met at a petrol station along the highway. I stopped for fuel and when I wanted to enter the shop, a beautiful big cat sat next to the entrance door and let me pet her. She was very affectionate and friendly and I love cats so that by itself improved my mood a little bit. I asked the girl behind the counter about it and she said that the cat had been there, or come there every day, for the last 15 years! She never came into the shop and always sits outside the front door. She also never goes towards the highway. The workers had become used of it by now and fed her the left over pieces of chicken every night. She invited me to feed the cat together and we both came out with chicken, and even before we had reached the door, the cat knew what was about to happen and started jumping up and down and rubbing her head against the glass door. So cute! She ate all the chicken like it was her first meal in weeks, but her size told the true story I guess.