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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