Lip Zits

I have a zit on my face. A really blatant one, right on my upper lip, taunting me. Lip zits are by far the most painful to pop. I mean exceedingly painful, but I was determined. Leaning forward to see it better, I placed one fingernail on each side and pressed through the pain until a chunk of white puss shot out and landed on the mirror. I kept going, wanting to make sure there was nothing left in the raised hole I'd created, and pretty sure there was, but I was unable to get it.

When I got out of the shower, the zit's ground zero hole was still all red and surrounded by pink. It needed to be hidden. I tried to put heavy-duty concealer on it, layer foundation over that and then top it off with some setting powder, but when I stepped back from the mirror, it just laughed at me. The red was covered - for the time, at least - but the bump of it stuck out so far that it caught light from the lamp across the room and cast its own shadow over my Chapsticked lips. I had been defeated.

In the past week I've broken out on my face, my chest and my back. It's gross. What's bothering me is that back zits have a nickname: bacne (pron: back-nee, like acne), but chest zits are totally left out. No nickname for the little red bumps that preclude me from wearing most of my shirts as I have an affinity for scoop necks.

Wednesday I was supposed to go back to Mayo and see my neurologist, who would tell me the results of the tests I'd had the two days before. Wednesday I was supposed to find out if there's still seizure activity in my brain or not. Wednesday, seven inches of snow covered a layer of ice that spanned the width and length of every street and highway in town. And out of town, for that matter. We had planned to leave the house at ten, giving us plenty of time to get to the one-o-clock appointment since it's only an hour and a half drive to Rochester, but the snow was still falling, thick, white flakes dancing quickly through the air. The tv said that the storm was moving South, toward Rochester. The driving conditions were growing more dangerous by the minute; it would be crazy to attempt a trip to Mayo.

I called the neurology office to see if I could reschedule my appointment for Monday, when I was planning to come down to see the surgeon. Would that be okay? Did he have any openings? I was so disappointed. I wanted so badly to see the results of those tests, to know if the surgeries worked, to know what was happening in my body. I had mentally prepared myself for whatever answer I would get; or at least prepared myself not to fall to the ground crying with either grief or gratitude. But no, that would be another day. I had all of this energy and emotion stored up and ready to go but nowhere to use it. The adrenaline evaporated, leaving me sapped, disappointed and angry. I so rarely get angry; I hate that feeling. I was angry at the snow, at the ice, at the world for keeping me scared and anxious.

The office called back at about eleven with a new time for my appointment, which they were able to get on Monday. The negative emotions inside of me were exhausting, but I mustered up a genuine thank you for all of her help.

I spent a lot of the day sleeping, reading and watching Hulu on my computer, and by dinner I was okay. I'd accepted that I was going to have a few more days of uncertainty. I knew I would be scared and impatient, but I learned how to deal with that in the months before the surgeries and I could do it again. So now I wait.

Since middle school, I've learned that stress has a funny (not ha ha funny) way of bringing friends with it, most of whom cause their own stresses. Specifically, I'm referring to zits. Lots of 'em. I hoped that they would go away once I heard definitively if there was any seizure activity still in my brain, but now I have three more days for my body to express how it feels about being in limbo by turning me into Pizza Face.

Wait, there's another undergrounder surfacing on my lip...