I would guess that my sunburn is pretty bad, but there hasn't been any blisters that I can tell. For some reason, I bunt on my back and stomach and a little bit of my arms despite lathering up with sunblock. My feet have red sandal bars, and my shins are slightly red. I also burnt my nipples. According to the graphics program, I went from about a hex color #9C8F89 to 956163.
As for pain, about a half hour before getting out of the river, my back stated bothering me, a raw sensation, I thought was due to the tube. After getting out of the water, it was an intense burning feeling, just like... well, getting burnt. Searching for 'pain' on my blog, will bring up the time I burnt my hand on the pizza pan. My back felt like that. Throbbing burning pain. At the time I didn't even realize anything else was burnt. I had nothing to put on it so I just clenched my teeth, and tried to think of 'no pain,' which doesn't really work. I guess eventually I got used to it, or else my mind was taken off it by other things. It still hurt but I started to ignore it. I think the reason it was so much pain is, in addition to sunburn, I also had tube burn. It was raw from rubbing against rubber for 6 hours. But then how did it burn...
Skip to the ride home. I was really tired so I started falling asleep, but my back felt so hot, that I would wake up. It wasn't so much the stinging anymore 2 hours later, just hot. Leaning back against the seat was almost unbearable.
The cold shower felt pretty good, but the water pressure was too much. Towel drying hurt. Now my stomach area was starting to hurt.
Trying to sleep was like trying to sleep on nails. The only comfortable position was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Unfortunately, I can't sleep that way. Applying pressure to the front or back was about as bad as when I first noticed the pain. It was hot, stinging, and like I was on fire. eventually I was so tired, I managed to fall asleep, but I could only sleep a couple hours at a time. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to take an aspirin, which apparently I should have, but I put aloe gel on it which provide about 10 minutes of release.
In the morning I was slightly better or else used to it. My feet really hurt though. Slowly through out the day, the pain gets replaced by itchiness. Though if I scratch, I get a burning sensation again.
I read that I should take a cool but not cold bath, so I did and that helped me feel a lot better, plus I took some aspirin and Tylenol.
Now the weird. Some of the places there are just lines of burnt, less than 1cm wide, some speckles. It looks more like scrapes, but I didn't do anything to get scraped. Also upon inspecting my back, I discovered the mole I had since I was a wee-little-one, no longer looks like a mole. It's bubbled up and red and looks like melanoma. I think I better get that checked out. I'm not sure the burn did it, but it brought it to my attention anyway.
And therein lies the description of the first day of being sunburnt. It's annoying because I hate being sunburt, and made sure to generously apply lotion. Next time, if there is a next time, it's going to be a shirt.
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