And when I had sex, I had sex with the lights off.Īlong with the itch came the naps.

I purchased dark-colored sheets to mask the rusty stains. Once the weather turned too warm to wear jeans every day, I invested in a collection of opaque black tights. I slathered myself in drugstore potions made of witch hazel tonic and I plugged my nose as I drank the bitter tea concoctions. I washed my skin with a wet cloth, watching the crimson streaks swirl down the shower drain. I hoped it would clear up on its own.Įvery morning, I would crack the door of my dorm room, scan the hall, and sprint in my towel to the communal bathroom before anyone could see my limbs. But no one seemed to know for sure, so I tried not to make a big deal out of it. A general practitioner surmised that it was stress-related and gave me samples of an antianxiety medication. A nurse at the college health center thought it might be eczema and recommended a cream. 'It might be a parasite you picked up while studying abroad,' a Chinese herbalist told me before sending me off with foul-smelling supplements and bitter teas. Bloody harbingers of a mounting struggle taking place inside of me. A scree of oozing nicks, thick scabs, and fresh scars soon marred my legs as if they had been beaten with rose thistles. I itched while dancing with friends on the beer-slicked floors of basement taprooms. I itched under the big wooden desk of my library carrel. I itched during my part-time job at the campus film lab. Without realizing what I was doing, my hand began meandering down my legs, my nails raking my jeans in search of relief, before burrowing under the hem to sink directly into flesh. I tried to resist scratching, but the itch was relentless, spreading across the surface of my skin like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. A maddening, claw-at-your-skin, keep-you-up-at-night itch that surfaced during my senior year of college, first on the tops of my feet and then moving up my calves and thighs. Not a metaphorical itch to travel the world or some quarter-life crisis, but a literal, physical itch. Read an excerpt below, and don't miss correspondent Jim Axelrod's interview with Suleika Jaouad on 'CBS Sunday Morning' February 14!

That journey became the basis of her new book, 'Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted' (Random House). Suleika Jaouad documented her nearly-four-year endurance of chemotherapy in her New York Times column, 'Life, Interrupted,' which she followed with a 15,000-mile road trip to meet 22 of the many strangers who had written to her with stories of their own.

Suleika jaouad books