Growing up in the South means growing up with a lot of, uhhm, well, I guess you’d call them superstitions or wives tales.
If you have a sore white bump on your tongue, well, that’s a lie bump, caused by telling fibs. Freckles are where the angels kissed you (although why the angels felt it necessary to only mack down on my shoulders is unaccounted for).
A random full-bodied shiver means someone has walked over your grave (because, apparently, white trash folks believe in reincarnation. Oddly, I never saw any Buddhist temples in my corner of the trailer park).
And if your palms are itching, it means either company’s coming or money’s coming. I could never remember which hand was which. Plus, based on my family’s socio-economic development, I think we can squash the money’s coming wives tale completely. Although, to be fair, there never was a time limit on that one, so maybe I should go and check the mail real quick.
So when my left eyelid started itching and getting red and tender, I just assumed it was a sign that some sort of gift was imminent or maybe the devil had tried to poke me in the eye and I’d flinched or some such nonsense.
After about a month of it, I went to the dermatologist. Yeah, a month. I’m pretty lazy when it comes to the doctor stuff.
Which was another funny thing: I wasn’t quite sure what doctor to go to on this one. It’s my eye, so my first thought was the eye doctor, but it wasn’t inside my eye, just my eyelid, so maybe my general physician. I finally settled on the dermatologist because, well, his office was the closest. Yep, that’s how I make medical decisions – geographic desirability.
It was a generally useless visit since I only had an irritated eyelid, and not an all-over body rash.
He asked if I had ever had any rashes anywhere else, any signs of eczema or anything. Nope. He asked about my facial routine – did I use any creams or lotions or eye creams or anti-wrinkle serums. I said yes. He asked which of those options. I pointed out that I’m 41, so yeah, I use all of them. He asked if any of them contained retinol, AHA’s, vitamin C, etc, etc. I said, ‘well, they say they make your skin look younger.’
Basically, he said he couldn’t really diagnose it beyond just generic dermatitis, but he could give me a cream for it (yeah another cream!). The silly man asked me if I was still wearing eye makeup, to which I responded, “Of course! My eyelid is red! I’m not walking around with some red eyelid.”
In return, he made fun of me for using Neosporin on it, pointing out that Neosporin is used to combat potential infection. Not a skin rash. My bad. I put Neosporin on everything. It’s my go to first aid product.
Except for on lie bumps. Do not put Neosporin in your mouth. It’s a bad idea. For lie bumps, you need to drink lots of wine. And don’t let cats around babies….they steal their breath!
