Since becoming a married woman I have expirienced all of the following:

1) Huge itchy red hives all over the surface of my body.
2) Swelling of my hands, feet and eyes.
3) Inexplicable jaw pain that spread into my head and neck.
4) Excruciating headaches and shooting pain while chewing.
5) Sudden fever and body aches.
6) A sore throat that scoffed at the mere suggestion of solid food.
7) Congestion that slowly but surely made its way to my chest, leaving me with a horrible rasping cough.
8) Laryngitis that makes me sound like "Squeaky Voiced Teen" a la the Simpsons.
9) Another bought of hives that attacked my face this time.
10) An ear infection that woke me in the middle of the night and aroused fears that my eardrum was rupturing.
11) Pink eye in not one, but both eyes. My eyes are red, itchy, burning and discharging a truly revolting mucus. The final flourish is that the whites of my eyes are now red and I look like either A) The daughter of Satan or B) Someone who is permanently stoned. Neither of these are looks I try to cultivate in my day to day existence.

I have literally been sick since the Honeymoon was over. Not sure what is going on, except that perhaps my immune system has not been up to the task of keeping me healthy in the wake of wedding mayhem and Africa madness. As I recall, I wasn't exactly at my healthiest before the wedding, either, but somehow my white blood cells kept it all together for the big day... and then let it all go to hell two days later. Ah well, I'm just thrilled that I didn't let my insurance lapse in the meantime. I've paid visits to an allergy specialist, the dentist and urgent care in the last two weeks, so the insurance seems to have been worth its weight in gold.

In other news, I have wedding pics at last and they are beautiful. Thank you to Maggie for capturing such a joyful day so eloquently. Here are some teasers, and there will be more at A Most Unusual Party in a few more days. If you have pictures from our day that you'd like to share with everyone, e-mail them to Eric (or myself) and he can post them on the site. We'd love to see your pictures! It's been fun to re-live the wedding while languishing on the sofa in between episodes of Oprah, cans of ginger ale and chapters of "The Malaria Capers".