The Lunch Break

I still don’t know what kind of content I will post on this blog but today I want to talk about one horrible lunch break I had during the summer.

My office is not located in the city center so normally we just stay at the office to eat lunch. However, one hot summer day, I really had to go to the bank to sign a paper so I decided that my 1 hour lunch break was enough time to make the trip, see somebody at the bank and go back to the office. Well… in theory it works since it takes around 20 minutes to go to the bank from my office. So 40 minutes both ways in bus and metro + 20 minutes in the bank, it could work. Buuuuut spoiler: Nop, it was not enough time.

It started well, it was around 35 degrees Celsius that day but I was able to walk to the bus stop without sweating. Yes, that’s a weird victory but for me sweating is the hardest thing to control with my condition. To walk on a hot day, I need to control my pace otherwise I will have to stop after 5 minutes because I will get red patches everywhere and it will be really hard not to scratch my body. And I am not talking about dripping sweat, I am talking about just the beginning when you start to feel your skin gets more humid. Well, for me this stage is enough to get itchy rash so I try not to walk too fast, to wear light clothing and to stay in the shadow as much as I can.

Anyway, it all started well but then my bus was late. Since the bus was late, I missed the metro I wanted to take. No problem, I thought, I’ll just take the next one. However, after waiting for 15 minutes an announcement was made that the metro line was stopped because of a technical problem. I left the office at 12:00, it was already 12:30 and my flatmate was queuing at the bank (we had to go together to sign something for our flat). I decided to take a bus instead of the metro but I had to run to catch it, that’s when I almost gave up. I really didn’t want to start sweating excessively because I knew I will have a horrible rest of the day. But at the same time, I couldn’t just abandon my flatmate at the bank since my signature was needed. It is the kind of decision I hate making because I always choose to « sacrifice » my body. So in the end, I decided to run until the bus stop knowing I would hate myself afterwards.

I went on the bus and finally arrived at a bus stop close to the bank at 12:50. On the way, I called a colleague to tell him I will be late (he had to wait for me to come back in order to go eat). I ran from the bus stop to the bank so as you can imagine, I was dripping wet from running all the way and in the sun. I arrived right on time, when it was our turn to see a bank employee. However, I was stressed + my whole body was itching so bad I thought I would burst in flames (or just start to have a meltdown and cry in the middle of the bank…). I was trying to concentrate so hard that my hands were shaking. My flatmate asked me to calm down 3 times, thinking I was stressed about being late to the office. I just ignored him (it was too much effort to talk more than necessary anyway) and just gave the entire files I had to the bank employee. She didn’t need all of them but she was nice enough to check all the papers and take only the necessary ones. Or maybe I was just such a mess she thought it was easier and faster this way.

I left the bank at 13:10 and decided to take yet another bus number (longer way but no change necessary since the metro was not running) to go back to the office. In my city, there are two kind of bus: the « new » ones with air conditioning and then the « old » ones with stairs to enter the bus and no air conditioning at all. The old buses are getting replaced so I guess they have only around 10% of them left. Well, guess which one I had? Yep, an old one. Mind you, after all the running and the stress of getting the paper signed my body kept sweating more and more to regulate itself so getting in a hot bus without air was not very tempting. But my colleague was waiting for me so I took it and arrived at around 13:40. Let’s just say it was a horrible and not very productive afternoon. I just wanted to scratch my skin raw and was on the verge of crying for a good part of the afternoon. I was not able to concentrate on anything and my mind was just blank. My manager came to talk to me about one of my project and I was not able to follow up the conversation. Thankfully, he just thought I had too much work and told me we could talk about it later.

There is no real conclusion to get from this story, I just wanted to express how such an everyday thing as « running to catch a bus » or « going to the bank » can become something that will ruin my day. Often when people discover my allergy they would ask stuff such as: « How do you shower? » « Well, then you can’t go in the rain, can you? » but nobody ever think about sweating. However, sweating is the worse for me because I can’t control it. I am not saying that other things are easy but I can sort of manage it to an extend. But sweating? No way! It depends on my stress, the temperature, what I am wearing, what I am doing, my hormones… a lot of factors that make it hell to manage.