Love Your Fungus

Yes, I already did the finger fungus thing on my facebook status this week, but I swear this post was written first. But this is much more lifelike because I've included a picture.

My hands have been itching like a sumbitch since 2003. In that time, I calculate that I have purchased nearly five hundred dollars worth of hydrocortisone cream, and more recently, a couple hundred dollars worth of antifungal cream. I could never decide which it was—a fungus or some kind of rash. I’ve recently learned that the hydrocortisone has probably made it worse by suppressing my immunity. Nice. I’ve screwed around so long that I may have any number of dermatoses like impetigo or even something cooler-sounding like Norwegian scabies or sarcoptic mange.

I am so not getting laid at the Clevermax Reunion this Saturday (Scipio, Kansas. Gates open at 11 a.m. Wristbands $10).

Anyway, it’s probably a fungus. I learned this from my veterinarian who unknowingly functions as my personal physician. When my rat terrier had a bump on her nose, he said, “It’s either staph or a fungus. Let’s put it under a black light.” I held her under his black light and saw no green-purple glow. “Yeah, that’s probably staph,” he said. “Let’s put her on antibiotics.” And she got better. And that’s exactly how I diagnosed my hand fungus. I took our black light into the bathroom and shut the door with the lights off. It glowed so pretty I had to call Tessa to check it out. She said it was cool.

I’d post a photograph of it, but I’m a rotten photographer. On the other hand, I’m a good cartoonist, so I just drew a picture of it. This is exactly what it looks like under a black light.

Tessa says people love visual aids.

Now, she makes me scrub with steel wool and apply jock itch medicine to it twice a day. It’s not helping, yet, though. Time for another trip to the vet, I suppose.

Why doesn’t Tessa get the fungus? Beats the hell out of me. I touch her all day, every day. I don’t use gloves much because my hands are so big the gloves rip out. Probably I’m just washing my hands too much. I understand that the bacteria on our skin helps keep the fungus in check. Cool, huh? So that may explain why Tessa is immune to my fungus. She has rank upon rank of Staphylococcus epidermidis eating up the fungus and guarding her skin like the Holy of Holies it is. On the other hand, I could be making that up. I just never know.