I had a great day in Eau Claire. I took my own lunch, but I did buy snacks and I had to go to the pharmacy for more medicine for these darn hives. But the snacks for the whole day were less than $5 and the medicine was only $2.01, so I still have tons of cash in my wallet. For one panicky moment, I thought I’d forgotten my cash, but I hadn’t.

The “(almost)” was for the youth center and senior center supplies I bought at Sam’s Club, which I charged to the youth center’s card. I figure it doesn’t count if it isn’t charged to my card. But I controlled myself and didn’t buy anything for home because we honestly didn’t need anything. I sampled some mighty tasty stuff, too, and just said, “Thanks, that was really good” and didn’t let them make me feel pressured into buying. (As I previously would have, I’ll admit.)

On another note, I ended up at the emergency room last night because my hives were so bad. The side of my face really, really swelled up and it scared me. The problem was that I still need the prednisone and I’d been on a “tapered” dose, 30 mg 3 days, 20 mg 3 days and 10 mg 3 days. On the 10 mg days, I had a few hives, but yesterday was the first day with no prednisone and they came back really bad. So now I am on 20 mg for another 5 days, followed by 10 mg for 5 more days and I need to see my own doctor before those 5 days are up to develop a plan. But the e.r. doctor also told me to take twice the dosage of the antihistamine, so that might help, too. So frustrating that they don’t know what is causing it, and actually in 70% of the cases of chronic hives, they never do find a cause. Hard to know how to prevent them if you can’t figure out what is causing them. So you just have to take the medicine, which I’ll admit I’m starting to LOVE! Because it works so well. Today is so different from yesterday, just because of meds. Not itching. Not swelling. Not looking like a monster. Just a normal person, thanks to DRUGS. Yikes!