April passed by in a blur.
During the first weekend of April, my parents came up to visit. We went out to eat dim sum for the first time in over a year, which was great. There was a new bubble tea place nearby, so we tried a variety of their fruit teas since it was buy 5 get 1 free, and there were six of us lol. The next day, we went grocery shopping at the Asian store with our parents; they hadn't gone shopping up here since last year, so they really stocked up on everything. Then, we bought more bubble tea before the parents headed back home to Warner Robins.
For the past few months, I noticed that I was having an allergic reaction to something because I kept on breaking out into hives all over my body. At first, I thought it was something in my bathroom since I kept on breaking out during and/or after I took a shower at night. Then, I noticed that my shower liner had some mold at the bottom, so I threw it away and replaced it with a new one. I also replaced my loofa and threw out my soap bar since I knew it was over a year old. I also started using a new body wash that came with a body lotion set I bought a couple of months ago. After making all of those changes, I noticed that I stopped breaking out into hives.
However, the hives started coming back after a couple of weeks. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, especially since I kept on breaking out into hives in the middle of my shower. At first, Kyle thought it maybe my shower curtain also contained mold, and we planned to wash it that weekend, but then I realized that I was breaking into hives whenever I was really tired from staying up late or thinking about work too much.
Then Shelle reminded me that she used to break out into stress hives when she worked at her old job because the workload was too much for just her alone. That was one of the main reasons why she quit her job because management kept on telling her that they were planning on hiring more people to her team so that her workload would be less, but months passed, and they still hadn't hired anyone. After I took a couple more showers, I realized that I would inevitably think about all the things I needed to do for work and started getting anxious. Then, I would start breaking out into hives, so I finally figured out that I have stress hives. Yay... lol.
Realizing that I have stress hives kind of made things easier. I started trying to get a better work/life balance and to stop working at reasonable hours. I'm trying to go to bed earlier, especially on weekends so that I'm less sleep deprived.
However, not long after I started trying to prevent my stress hives, Anita (my manager and mentor) told me that she was leaving the company. Then, my hives came back immediately. Luckily, she gave us three weeks before she left, so we spent a lot of time going over the transition period, so that we would be better prepared for when she leaves. I also told her and Irene (my previous and current manager) about my stress hives, so they know that I already have a lot on my plate and are trying to help me from going crazy from my workload lol.
Shelle, Kyle, and I also got our second Covid shot right before driving down and visiting the parents for the weekend. Everyone we talked to told us that they either felt fine or terrible for a couple of days, so we were prepared to feel terrible all weekend with our parents taking care of us lol. Luckily, we mainly were just tired for a day and had mild symptoms. For some reason, I became nauseous whenever I ate too much the next day. Other than that, it wasn't too bad lol.
The following Monday, I had my ear and nose surgery follow-up appointment. I had to do that nasal spray twice a day for a month, and I was ready to find out if I still needed to do the spray. Luckily, my doctor said that both my ear and nose were healing really well, so I didn't need to use the spray anymore!
So yeah, April was a blur of ups and downs. What a rollercoaster lol.
