To start with, I’m fine. I went on Monday 12-April, and ended up spending the entire day getting checked out. I checked in at 11:45am. It was about 6:00 pm when I was released.
I went to the ER because of a very large rash that sprung up over the past week, and really bloomed over the weekend. I was afraid I might be in the very early stages of a shingles outbreak. If that’s what it was, I needed to get ahead of it fast. An outbreak of that size probably would have hospitalized me for several days. It was ultimately determined to not be shingles. There was a good bit of “that’s really weird” between the nurses, NP, and doctor.
You see, the rash doesn’t itch or burn. There’s no pain or discomfort of any sort. It’s just this huge red patch on my right thigh, with a smaller patch on the right calf. There was a bit just beginning to appear on my left leg as well. So, blood was drawn to check liver and kidney function, and clotting factors. Everything came back “pristeen” per the NP.
We discussed what I might be reacting to, and I noted that I’d recently (mid-January) started on Keppra. Rash is a known side effect of that medication. The ER doctor and NP had neither one seen a Keppra rash, but agreed that was a plausible explanation. They sent a note to my neurologist, complete with photo of the rash. I made a comment about how I was a zebra. The doctor replied (in jest) “So you earned a new stripe for your zebra today, huh?”
She gave me a prescription for a steroidal cream, in case it wasn’t Keppra. I spent another hour filling that in the hospital pharmacy, and finally started home about 7:30 pm. I was exhausted, of course, by the time I made it home. My roommate had hot dogs ready, which I really appreciated. I’d had nothing to eat all day, so I was quite hungry.
I assume I will hear from the neurologist sometime in the next few days about that rash.
An Aging Trans Woman 
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