1. Prescription Drugs. If your doctor is kind, they will give you pain meds in addition to a lovely cocktail they traditionally prescribe. All 3 meds have positive and negative attributes. Take them all, especially the pain killers, they kind of help, well, they make your brain all fuzzy and then you don't seem to care that your neurological pattern rash is quite possibly the most annoying pain you've ever had because it doesn't really make sense why a small train of red dots makes your head, neck and chest hurt.
2. Find yourself a favorite bag of candy from your youth, call your mom and have her go find that specific brand of candy and bring them to you. Open it immediately and leave it on your nightstand for future snacking. Make sure there's a reserve supply.
3. Have a whole list of fun things planned out for the weekend. Let everyone know that you will not be available for anything besides texts, sympathy baked goods/take-out food, and stories that will make you wish you were born after someone in chemistry class figured out you could make a chicken pox/shingles vaccine.
4. Vintage Table Lamp. Chances are you'll be up in the wee hours of the morning either needing a fresh glass of cold water to wash down more meds, needing to use the toilet, or just wandering aimlessly in narcofantasy land. Night lights are key, especially if you remember there's one right by your head and even better if you remember to turn it on if you need to get out of bed.
5. Swearing. Brush up on some of your best colorful and tasteless descriptive vocabulary.
5. DVD's. Pull out all the ones that make you laugh really hard and the one cheesy 80's one that you never get sick of watching......works well if you A. own too many hilarious dvds; B. have a lot of staple movies from the 80's and; C. have a 17" laptop that is basically your siamese twin.
6. Medical Terminology. A lot of people don't know what you've got and they kinda think you might have something like an syphilis or scabies because it sounds a little like both if you're not really paying attention. Assure them you don't have bugs or STD's. You may even question whether you actually have both, but it's pretty standard medicinal reaction when you are prescribed Prednisone (a steroid that makes you feel wired and nutty), Valtrex (comercially it's used to suppress genital herpes, but is also used for various viral conditions), and Vicodin (narcotics tend to make a lot people itchy). Lucky you, it's just shingles!
7. Leak-proof BPA-free waterbottle. There are times when you physically don't wanna move because it either hurts, or afraid you'll never be comfortable again or you're just drugged out of your mind But you still gotta drink the H2O! Perfect solution.
8. Sense of Humor. Laughter makes a lot of things better, i would say it makes EVERYTHING better, but i know there are some instances you can't really laugh your way out of. The nice thing about shingles is that it's temporary, and even though you can get it again in the future, it's not like it's something you can't tell people about and have them think of you differently (a-la scabies and syphilis)
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