Summer Days: Eczema (Warning: Deep Post)

So the sun is shining, the last couple of days have been serene and beautiful... but I'm not allowed to enjoy it... according to my skin anyway!

I envy those people who's eczema gets better in the sun shine weather. Mine just gets worse and worse. Everything about the sunny weather just destroys me. The heat is too much that I get itchy and irritable and come out in hives; the abundance of UV rays means high factor sun cream which dries out my poor skin; not to mention the emergence of insects that act as irritants! It's bad enough to near-constantly feel as though I have millions of tiny insects crawling all over my body, but to have it actually happen makes that sensation all the worse!

I find myself tearing my poor skin to shreds because I just cannot get comfortable. Summer is literally hell on earth for me but I wish it wasn't. I want nothing more than to enjoy soaking some of the sun up through my Vitamin D deficient skin but those times are just distant memories, what with now taking immunosuppressants that make the risks of getting the likes of skin cancer that much greater.

I yearn for my youth for when I could paddle in the sea on a summers day, without feeling the sheer agony of sea salt driving itself into fresh wounds; for reading a good book in the sun trap that is the garden; for going on sun lit adventures; and most earnestly to just feel god damn comfortable in my own sodding skin.

I miss being normal.

I think that's what makes it worse for me. I've always had eczema but I've never suffered from it as much as I suffer now. It was always manageable and easy to rectify. Life gave me a taste of what it is to live but I have so many regrets that I've taken the life I had prior to this for granted. I'll never get back these past few years of my "prime" where I could have really made something for myself. We are only on this earth for a blink of an eye after all.

In short: you can't miss what you've never had, but if you were lucky enough to experience life beforehand make the bloody most of it. Life is too short.

The London Marathon - Raising Money For Eczema

This weekend saw my other half, Shane run the greatly prestigious London Marathon, his first EVER marathon! He did extremely well, running it in 3 hours and 47 minutes and for that alone I reckon is a major commendable achievement. After all, he isn't doing it for himself, he's doing it in order to raise money and awareness for those who suffer from this awful skin complaint in the hope of providing the National Eczema Society with the much needed capital to fund necessary research to finding the cure.

Despite not being in the best shape for this big run; lack of quality sleep and eating far too much rubbish due to his birthday being earlier this week, he's done amazingly and I am so proud of him. Next weekend he will be running the half marathon in Stratford though does have the option of running the full marathon if he wishes. It's probably for the best if he recovers though!

Please, please sponsor him >>> www.justgiving.com/shanes1000km

Photo after he'd crossed the finishing line.

Shane & I before the run. We weren't allowed to walk through into his area so this was goodbye until after the race.

After the race. The weather got out really sunny. It's hard to see here as my face is shaded but I'm actually very sunburnt.

Unfortunately because I take immunosuppressants I am much more susceptible to sun burn. It's my own stupid fault for not having sun cream to hand, but I'm yet to find one that doesn't irritate my eczema. I find that sun cream tends to have a drying out effect on the skin, so need to moisturise directly after application but this then defeats the object of wearing sun cream as the moisturiser acts as a grease, thus heating up and causing a cooking effect. Rubbish! Looks like I need to shop for a big floppy hat in the near future!

I will write up a separate post relating to some other issues I've thought up this weekend so keep your eyes peeled for those.