Alien Skin (or, the honeymoon episode)

First, consider the following circumstances:

• Lounging in the sun for at least two hours a day. The Aruban sun, near the equator, which, without the cooling trade winds of the Carribbean, would scorch any skin type to perfect medium-well-steak standards.
• Slathering on a palmful of sunscreen every morning. 45, which should protect even the fairest skin from the Aruban sun oven. And it's waterproof, so that not only will the wearer be able to enjoy the beach and the pool, but the water will bead up and glide off the skin oh-so pleasingly.
• After a few days of this routine, have a full body massage. It begins with a skin brush, which only feels good because the skin has been so carefully protected from sunburn. Then heated oil is gently rubbed all over, releasing any tension which may have resulted from the constant cooling trade winds + sticky sunscreen + long hair issue.

They all sound nice, right? Except that just hours after the massage, some tiny itchy bumps appeared on my feet. I couldn't sleep because I hadn't experienced such itching since I had the chicken pox in second grade. I thought I was either allergic to the oil, or that we had bedbugs in the bottom corner of my side of the bed. No bedbugs, I checked.

I took several showers, thinking if it was the oil, I could wash it away and I'd be fine. The bumps spread. I had them on the backs of my knees, the backs of my hands, on my forearms, my neck, and my thighs. They weren't red, just itchy. So damn itchy.

Well, I'm back from Aruba now. I still have the bumps. Was it the sun, or the sunscreen? If it was, shouldn't they have gone away by now?

And the thing is, I'm so far behind at work and in school that I don't have time to go see the dermatologist. And I can't take Sudafed because I can't risk losing even more time for homework to the ensuing sleep. What to do?

At least I don't look like a lizard. But if I end up looking like this guy here, I think I will find the time for a remedy.