Tag: dermatology

I stabbed my face, and other fun things 

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Before I visit a country for the first time, I like to bathe in the local culture, mainly through books and movies. (I save the food part until I get there and do it right, with bite.) As mentioned in my last post, I head to Seoul, South Korea, in a few weeks, so I’ve been hungrily reading novels and watching films by Korean artists. Christ, they’re grim. How I love it.

Take “Memories of Murder,” by Bong Joon-ho, who made the stinging class-warfare satire and Oscar-winner “Parasite,” itself fairly bleak. This excellent serial-killer detective saga throbs with death and dark humor, winding down to a gut-punch ending that will leave your jaw somewhere around your big toes. Kim Jee-woon’s “I Saw the Devil” is another serial-killer drama, a fiendishly clever spin on the revenge thriller splattered with brutally sadistic punishments that I cannot speak of here, lest the authorities bust in.

Something lighter? Try the smash Netflix series “Squid Game,” in which financially strapped citizens try to win millions playing grueling games with the simple rule: you lose, you die. I haven’t seen so many blood geysers since “The Wild Bunch.”

Twisted, yes. But then you don’t know Park Chan-wook’s 2003 masterpiece “Oldboy.” Yet another revenge rampage, Park peppers his gorgeously gory film with creative curlicues not easily forgotten — like the antihero devouring a whole, live, squirming octopus in one take and, later, fending off dozens of assassins armed with only a hammer, a tour de force of cinematic choreography.

It’s not much sunnier on the book side. I just finished the slim novel about suicide “I Have the Right to Destroy Myself” by Young-Ha Kim. It’s gloomy, but also not great. It’s infatuated with its own misery. 

More famous is “The Vegetarian” by Nobel Prize-winner Han Kang. The heroine of this celebrated novel renounces meat, triggering a plague of psychological and bodily repercussions. (Put. Down. The. Cheeseburger.) And I’ve just started “Lemon” by Kwon Yeo-sun, about the unsolved murder of a high school student. More death — party time!

Is Korea so cracked? Apparently I’ve tapped into a thick cultural vein of crime, vengeance, class disparity, the sordid and surreal, the darkly existential and the exceptionally, even giddily, violent. That vein is a bloody gusher.

Speaking of unchecked violence, the other day I bayonetted my cheek with a thumbtack. I was lancing a pimple, not too giant, but big enough to evoke the Elephant Man. A hard, stubborn whitehead that was impervious to onslaughts by furious fingernails. So I said F-it, I’m getting a tack and uprooting this beast. First, I sterilized the tack’s point in the dancing blaze of a Bic lighter. Then I rinsed it in hot water. Then I took the business end of said tack and dug out the pimple’s white core from my cheek. Blood happened, but I extracted the thing in 30 seconds flat. My threshold for pain and gore is impressively high. The tattered flesh around the deceased pimple healed in a few days. I am an absolute master. Dermatologists, take note. And fellow zitheads: Shelve the Stridex. You might find more relief at Staples than CVS.

Like its kaleidoscopic neighbor Japan, South Korea is a Day-Glo bouncy house of the whack, weird and wonderful. While there, I will have ample offbeat options: Should I visit the Toilet Park and Museum, aka Mr. Toilet House, a festival of fecality? Or the Penis Park and Museum, studded with upright totems of erotic arousal (stop it!)? Or the Meerkat Friends Cafe, where twelve meerkats — so smooshily cute, like living anime creatures — a random raccoon and a floofy white Arctic fox scamper and play with you as you sip, and conceivably spill, coffee? I’ll be at all of them, of course. Oh, I almost forgot the popular Poop Cafe, whose theme is all things playfully bowel-adjacent (think chocolate soft serve, etc.). Consider it checked.

Life’s an itch

~ Chris ~ 6 Comments

This is not a pleasant post, far from mouthwatering, streaked as it is with pus, scabs and blood. If you’re looking for pixie dust and gummy bears, you’re way off, and I suggest you head to, oh, cutecatvideos.net or marthastewart.com. Giddiness awaits.

You know what eczema is? It’s not heavenly and I’ve got it hellishly. Not rampantly, but not mere diaper-rash dapples either. Mine’s mid-grade, enough for me to finally visit a dermatologist and to repeatedly try to saw my legs off with a cheese knife. The vile rashes are largely confined to my legs, with the random breakout on my arms and hands. Scaly fingers — the best!

Unsightly if not quite repulsive, the fleshly malady — “in which patches of skin become rough and inflamed, with blisters that cause itching and bleeding” (thank you, Webster, for that subtle description) — resembles a mild poison ivy rash. And it itches with fury and hellfire.

The condition is nothing new to me; I’m just electing to whine about it now, here, for your delectation. I’ve endured eczema eruptions sporadically since my wee years, when my parents slipped socks over my hands at bedtime so I wouldn’t rip open my flesh and bleed all over my “Star Wars” sheets while sleeping. 

I only bring it up because this bout is strange and strangely intense. Without dwelling on the oozy, crusty details, I’ll just say it’s a spectacular nuisance, keeping me up nights with feline scratching frenzies and poorly lit attempts to slather lotion over the seething inflammations, like putting out a blaze. Additionally, I’m ruining pairs of summer shorts, some of which have become polka-dotted with rude little blood stains. (Spray ’n Wash has some splaining to do.) 

I never dreamed I’d seek professional treatment for simple eczema. For months I’ve stubbornly tried to master the misery with over-the-counter remedies whose healing powers have proven distinctly underwhelming. There’s the Gold Bond Eczema Relief lotion and some wimpy 1% hydrocortisone creams — both mighty letdowns. The proof is in the ragged tissue under my fingernails.  

Nearly everyone, on the web and in person (including my new dermatologist), recommended I take an antihistamine for the itching, namely Benadryl. So I did. A lot. The other night, over the course of several hours, I popped eight Benadryls, a feat that might get me into the Guinness Book of World Records, or at least a spot on “Jackass.” Benadryl is a well known sedative, too, and most people I know plunge into a coma if they take more than one. But I am, alas, immune to the soporific powers of this allergy curative. A stiff Scotch will have to do.

Sometimes the big guns must be marshaled. The dermatologist meeting was quick and to the point. Besides urging me to take antihistamines, the doctor prescribed Betamethasone Dipropionate cream, described as a “strong corticosteroid,” which means, I hope, that it contains healing superpowers of uncommon righteousness. Corticosteroids come with myriad side effect warnings, from acne to glaucoma, but I’m going for it. Besides, I don’t think I’ll get acne or glaucoma on my legs.

Occasionally caused by allergic irritations, eczema mostly attacks for no good reason. As a little kid, chocolate triggered my eczema, so I had to eat that entirely lame chocolate substitute, carob. (By around 9, though, I was all about M&Ms and Reese’s. Hence a new affliction: cavities.) 

Here’s something. Last night was my first go with the powerhouse corticosteroid. I applied it as directed and went to bed. Around 4 a.m. I awoke with both hands clawing the treated regions. Itchy as ever, I took some Benadryl (for a total of seven that night), hoping it would blunt the pain and knock me out. Mission: failed. I was up all night, writhing. 

Still, I will keep at it, slathering white cream on red rashes, seeking a miracle. This is a process, it will take time, and I’m just scratching the surface.