Hurrah, I get to look like a 16th century peasant again.

I have a cold sore, on my lip, and it’s huge and ugly. Haven’t had one in years to my memory, or rather, one right on my lip in such an obvious and disease-infested-looking way.

I used to get them on my lip a lot, but then it just sort of stopped, and for a while, I thought I was lucky. But a few things have happened in the last week. One is that I was starting to get sick. Alicia was getting over a cold, but I’m pretty sure I was starting to feel lousy before our first encounter during the vacation, so it’s probably not from her. Two, on Friday I got sunburned a bit, including on my lips, which is a factor for triggering the cold sore. I think it’s probably both.

So yesterday evening my lip kind of tingled, and when I got home I saw a single bubble forming. This morning I woke up, and it was just hideous. At work, it just got more and more irritating so I went to the bathroom and popped as much as I could. Now I look like I’ve been punched in the mouth or something, which is mildly preferable. But up close, you can still see the bubbles and raw red flesh and general badness. When I got home I put a drop of Purel on it, just to see… it was quite painful, and reverted back to Polysporin.

But, in my experience, I usually go the classical length of time no matter what I do. 14 days.

May my immune system one day learn to cope