Wear and Tear

I'm getting to the point in my illness where I am at least going through the motions. I work out. I put on makeup. I wear real clothing that isn't made with fleece or Spandex. But I continue to feel like the walking dead. My head has been pounding for two days straight.

Erik seemed to be limping around the kitchen island yesterday. I told him to stop, and I sat him down on the floor. I turned the bottoms of his bare feet up to examine them and gasped. Not only is the skin on his toes so thin that it wears away on a regular basis, the skin covering his soles had worn out from simply running around the house. This has never happened before. In fact, it was so thin that his feet were reddish-purple and almost hot where they had been in contact with the floor. His soles looked like they were about to burst, and I hurt just looking at them. He hadn't given me one word of complaint, but he didn't protest when I covered him in shoes and socks. I have to keep shoes on him as much as possible to avoid the grisly bloodbath that occurs when his skin does disintegrate. Although it wears quickly, it heals just as fast underneath a layer of protection. On top of everything, he remains covered in eczema where the skin is a little thicker. His arms and legs feel like the surface of a freshly-plucked chicken, bumpy and dry, no matter what preparation I use or dietary change I make. Neither condition has improved in the slightest with time. Although I continue to go through the motions with greasy balms and lotions, I have really given up fighting it, as it doesn't seem to bother him or his doctor.

His skin just seems so fragile. And he seems so darned tough.