Hey all! So forgive my incomplete profile, I pretty much joined this site to get the words out and make my story known, so takes a deep breath, here goes.

About 2 months ago, I noticed some dry skin and some irritation that wasn't there before one day after shaving my armpits, so I decided to put some moisturizer on it and hope for the best. After that, the dryness turned into some bumps under the skin that I thought were just some pretty basic boils,  so I went to my family doctor to have them looked at. She too thought they were boils and gave me some skin cream to calm down the itchy dryness and what not, telling me to put some tea tree oil on the boils in hopes that it would kill them. Well it did not kill them.

The bumps continued to get bigger over time to the point where I couldn't sit, couldn't stand, couldn't ly down and sleep, nothing I did worked. Warm compresses, peroxide on the skin, tea tree oil, moisturizer cream, nothing. I showed my husband one night when I finally just couldn't take it anymore. He is a former first responder and he told me that it was a cyst and I prety much had no choice but to get it drained. I was so scared I was literally whimpering. Yes, whimpering. So now we have a name for my hs in our house, we call it the whimpers.

Anyways, so the very next day, after a really painful and sleepless night, this is about a month into these problems now, my husband took me into an urgent care doctor as my family doctor is not in on Tuesdays and it was a Tuesday morning. It hurt so bad that I almost called myself an ambulance the previous night as my husband was asleep, neither of us drive and I could literally see/feel th cyst getting bigger as I lay in bed. It had nowhere to drain from. Oops, sorry, getting off topic.

Anyway, we get to the doctor and he is incredible. He knew what I had within literally 30 seconds of me telling him what was wrong. He examined the skin just to confirm his hunch. Sure enough, he gave me the diagnosis of hs.

Off to get drained we go. So my amazing husband is in the room with me as I'm bawling my eyes out! Not so much because of the pain, but the fear of how much the lancing is gonna hurt! Yup, I was right. Cried the whole time and I'm not even embarrassed by that one bit. Even though the doctor froze the skin, I felt every bit of that blade, trust me. After the precedure finished, I was still bawling, more as of a release this time, I was just so glad not to be carrying that around anymore. Long story short, that side aled up really well with my amazing baby looking after me and cleaning and dressing it every day.

That brings us to what's going on now. I have another hs cyst on the opposite arm than the last time, so on the left side now. It's small, it's been there since Thursday. I'm doing everything I can to avoid getting it drained including putting turmeric powder on it and some antiboitic cream my family doctor gave me, which seem to be helping. I'm so scared of getting it lanced again and I'm not kidding when I say that was psychologically scarring for me. I seriously have dreams about that dang blade...Cringes...

I'm having trouble facing the possibility that I may have to bite the bullet and get it lanced again. Cringes once more*

Any help or uplifting words would be appreciated as I'm new to this whole hs thing but learning lots as I go. I will say this though, hs will NOT ruin or rule my life. I was here long before it was. My husband and I have 4 Christmas events to attend this week and I fully intend on being there for all 4 of them.

To everyone else living with hs, keep your face up. You are much stronger than this condition, sometimes stronger than you realize. It's amazing what we have in us when faced with trauma like this. Keep fighting the fight. If you don't, know one else can. We must keep our faces up and take back our lives. and remember, you're still beautiful and amazing.

Sending love, light and inspiration ps, always here to talk,

Fairy xo