Better, but...

I woke up feeling much better today - neck still dry and tight, but not painful. Only slightly itchy upon waking.  All good - that is until I went outside in the afternoon sun to start planting my sprouts in the garden.  Huge mistake!  Now I know why farmers do their farming before the sun even gets up!  Tons and tons of bugs out!  And I hate bugs!  Then I got hot as it was hot in the sun - which got me sweaty.  And I now sweat!  On my neck, on my back, behind my knees and all the other normal spots.  I was ok except for the sweat on the neck on my sensitive skin!  That started burning.  And I was already PMS'ing so altogether I lost it.  Mostly because of the bugs!  So hubby took over and I came back inside.  We now are planning to wake up at 5 am the next few days to get the rest of the seeds and sprouts planted!  Oh, and once I wiped the sweat off my neck it stopped burning.

Overall much improved, but I'm limited to what I can or cannot do probably for the next few days - limiting any sweating.  This made me feel like I was going backwards, but sometimes we need to take a few steps backward in order to take a huge leap forward.

In other news:  going to try acupuncture again.  I had seen a doctor from China who practices acupuncture here in NY now a few years ago prior to stopping the steroid creams.  At that time I had noticed some improvement for a few weeks afterwards but always ended up back to where I was skin wise prior to seeing her.  I honestly think the steroid creams were inhibiting me from getting any benefit from the acupuncture.  So after someone mentioned acupuncture in the NoMoreSteroids forum, I decided to go back and see her.  I was going to wait until I returned back to work, but hubby got a raise in his overtime rate which was a nice bonus!  So he agreed I should go before starting work.

And that leads me to the next thing - going back to work full time.  I have been part -time working about one shift per week.  I have not had any worsening of my hands from washing them multiple times in that one day, so I decided to return to work for a 13 week contract.  If I flare or react to the soaps, I will just not renew my contract.  And in order to minimize workload, I am going back to work at a smaller hospital and on night shift.  So the number of patients I will be caring for will be reduced by about half of what I am doing now.  The only potential downfall is working nights will tax my adrenals which have recovered nicely.  But even with 6 years off of working, I am still a night person - have been since I was a kid.  My body naturally wants to stay up late and sleep in during the mornings.  I tried to train myself to go to bed early and wake up early - tried that for over a year. But even though I was consistent and persistent, it failed.  I had worked night shift for about 7 years straight and I always did well.   I start in 2 weeks and am so looking forward to finally becoming financially more stable.  But most of all I look forward to having my husband not work 60 hours a week anymore.  He needs some much needed rest and the kids need their father around more.  I am truly blessed to have such an amazing husband!