Nonfiction | April 16, 2015
Rash
Nicole Banas
I was usually on the dean’s list, but that semester in my senior year things had nosedived. It began with a bout of influenza in January, followed by a sprinkling of angry red welts across much of my body. The rash was intensely itchy, and both a family physician and a dermatologist were confounded by its persistence. Antihistimines, steroids, prescription creams—all had proved powerless against the rash, which crept to new crevices on my body each week. An allergist at the university hospital advised me to stop eating wheat and soy, and then dairy, before finally saying he thought the rash might be a sign of an autoimmune disease, maybe lupus. He prescribed antimalarial drugs in addition to the other pills and creams and shook his head each time he scraped a line down my forearm and watched it swell.
This essay is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Editors' Prize Winner
Apr 16 2024
How to Love Animals
How To Love Animals We never planned to get goats. In fact, we’d told ourselves that goats were off limits. My wife, Anna, and I were living in the middle… read more
Nonfiction
Apr 16 2024
My Cape Disappointment
My Cape Disappointment It was named by a British fur trader who’d been looking for the mouth of the Columbia River. Dejected, the fur trader gave up the search, tacked… read more
Nonfiction
Apr 16 2024
The Birds
The Birds In the middle of watching Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds with my family in our basement TV room, circa 1969, when I was nine, I was sent to the… read more