Saturday, September 07, 2019

Leaves of Three I, Apparently, Did Not Let Be


My backyard is awash in volumes of poison ivy.  I know what it looks like and I take care.  Not always perfect care, because every summer I get a touch of poison ivy rash.  Usually, it itches uncomfortably but within a week, the rash has dried and I am feeling much better.  

Emphasis on usually.

Sometimes, it doesn’t get better and I need a few days of prednisone to clean things up.

And then there is my most recent exposure.  I knew my ankle had been brushed by poison ivy on Sunday, August 25th when I cut the grass and did some trimming of bushes in the yard.  I washed the spot and moved on.  Four days later, a rash emerged on my left arm.  And then all along my waistline.

A spot emerged on my face and neck.  

And then my chest.  

My ankle was a mess.

By Labor Day weekend, I was a walking itchy and scratchy advert.  And new breakouts kept appearing.  I took myself to the doctor and got some prednisone, first a shot and then six days worth of pills that would gradually taper off.  I also got a steroid cream to use.  At once, my symptoms began to ease.

But now, here at the end of the taper off, I am still getting new outbreaks.  Clearly the exposure was more than my ankle.  In fact, T saw a patch in the front yard where I had been trimming that I didn’t see at the time.  In all fairness to me, we’ve never had poison ivy in the front yard.  In all fairness to poison ivy, I have sometimes taken a cavalier attitude toward its presence.  

My last prednisone pill will be taken tomorrow.  At this rate, I’ve the notion that by Tuesday I am going to remain a very unwilling poison ivy subscriber, this time headed for round 2 of steroids.  Will I ever learn?

That’s a rhetorical question.

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