Kentucky Fried

On Saturday, Laura and I went canoing.  You'll hear more about that later, after I get the pictures from her.  But first I absolutely most post about the sunburn because it hurts like a banshee.

So in April, what Iowan thinks about sunblock?  Not really me.  Plus it was a cool, breezy day and not what I'd construe as "DANGER!" weather.  I brought along last year's sunblock, though, and Laura applied it liberally to her neck, which was already a little crispy from last weekend at her brother's baseball came.

Honestly, I didn't think I'd get a sunburn.  It's only April, for crying out lout, it's still snowing back home!  We hit the water at 11:00 and stopped for lunch about 12:30.  At that point, I decided I should put some sunblock on, so I slathered myself up but good.  Laura did the same.

We hit the water again at 1:30ish and canoed like madwomen until 3:00 when we reached the end of our 10 miles.

I realized at that point that I might be a little crispy.  We loaded up and drove back to Dallas, which was about an hour and a half away.  By the time we got home, I knew that I was a lot crispy.  My poor husband had spent the entire time I was enjoying myself (and getting burned) in the library working on a paper, so as his reward he wanted to watch Star Wars Episode Three.  I made it through half before I just couldn't stay awake anymore, so we went to bed.

I woke up at 2:30 feeling like every nerve in my body had been lit on fire.  I also discovered that I had excessively swollen knees.  (Swollen knees from a sunburn?!)  I hobbled to the bathroom and applied another round of Aloe lotion, drank some water, and threw myself back into bed, moaning slightly loud because I wanted Joey to wake up and feel sorry for me.  (I'm not kidding; I really did this.  He didn't hear me at all, either.)

By the time the alarm went off at 8:00, not only were my knees swollen, by my calves and thighs as well. 

"I...I think I'm going to die."  I moaned.  I hobbled over to the bathroom again to apply more aloe and drink more water.

"You seem like you're in distress," Joey said, with quite a bit of concern, "I'm going to call my mom for medical advice."

So he did.  I was told to take 800 mg of ibuprofen at first, then 400 mg every 6 hours.  Unfortunately, I misheard Joey's directions and thought I was supposed to take 600 mg every four hours.  (Joey discovered my mistake at about 9:00, after I had OD'd myself several times.  I blame it on the sunburn confusion in my brain.)  I was also to put cool washcloths on my knees to attempt to reduce the swelling.

At about 11:00, I decided I needed to call Laura to make sure she was OK.  She didn't answer, but about 45 minutes later I got a call back.  It went something like this:

Laura: OH MY GOSH are you DYING?!
Me:  Yes, are you too?
Laura:  My knees...are your knees swollen?
Me:  Yes they are; I can barely walk.

And so on and so forth.  This was the part where I started to wonder if my sunblock had become inert over the winter because I know Laura put way more on than I did.  And the parts of me where I applied sunblock are, oddly enough, the most burned and swollen parts of me.

"You are like Kentucky Fried Chicken, only you're Kentucky Fried Jenna," Joey said to me yesterday evening as I applied more aloe and moaned about my swollen legs.

I think he hit the nail on the head.  Sorry Laura, we totally should have used your sunblock.