Poison Ivy – Photo: ydr.com

Poison Ivy – Already?!?!

Ugh.

When I complained to Karl the other morning that I must’ve been bitten by something in bed (which, living in a roughly 175 year old house, does not take a stretch of the imagination to believe), he groaned sympathetically and asked to see the point of attack.

I pushed up the sleeve of my fluorescent orange fleece and showed him the pale inside of my left wrist. Two patches of red skin glared angrily up at me, for I’d been rubbing and half-scratching them for at least half an hour – probably longer if you count the time when I was half asleep and only gradually regaining consciousness, not even realizing I’d been futzing with the itchiness underneath my two bracelets. In fact, at first I’d thought I’d just slept wrong on the bracelets and the itching was just the flowing of blood back into what I assumed were dents in my skin from the bracelets being tight.

“You sure you think that’s a bite?” Karl asked, sounding completely skeptical of my assessment.

“Yeah. Why?” I asked defensively. “Look!” I said, thrusting my wrist in his direction again. “There’s one big raised bump there,” I pointed, “which definitely looks like a bite of some sort. And the other…well, the other little patch just looks, I don’t know…irritated.”

“Your sure it’s not poison?”

Willful Denial

A chill went through my veins. “It’s not poison,” I stated unequivocally. “I’d recognize the little bumps,” I added. Indeed, I’m so susceptible to poison ivy that I barely need to get near it to contract its near insanity-producing itching. And about three years ago, I’d contracted such a profound case of it that the poison ‘went systemic.’

I’d been miserable.

“Ok,” shrugged Karl. “It sort of looks like poison to me, though.”

I persisted in my denials for another day before finally succumbing to the truth that I am obviously sporting my first case of poison of the season – and it’s only April 15^th.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it before without having at least pulled a few good weeds. But no. Somehow I managed to get it in the middle of the night the other night. Without doing gardening. Without pulling weeds. Without even being outside at the time. I’d just slept a good night’s sleep – and awakened with poison on the inside of my wrist.

Early Ticks, Early Poison – Just Lovely

Sure hope this isn’t a harbinger of things to come: early ticks and early poison. Perhaps Mother Nature is just initiating me early this year.

All I know is, I’ve applied some goop to the inflammations and covered it all up with two bandaids for now because if there is one form of torture that makes me want to climb walls, it’s insistent, deep-seated, itching. And any of you out there who are also sensitive to poison (be it of the ivy, oak, or sumac variety) can relate to how that blistering of your skin type of itching can be maddening. As bad as mosquito bites are, poison takes it to the stratosphere.

In My Face – On My Wrist

Sorry to bitch, but there it is. I write what’s on my mind or, sometimes, in my face. Or in this case (luckily, I guess), on my wrist.

The only source I can imagine might be that I picked up some random piece of garbage in my trekking travels that had been sitting in or on, or brushed up against, some poison. (The oil of poison ivy is nasty stuff. Nuclear. Will live for practically forever.) And that errant piece of paper or strip of plastic or what-have-you probably merely flirted with touching my tender skin and >> BAM << I got poison.

Going to do my best tonight not to scratch it. The better I am at that, the quicker it’ll disappear.

I can do this.

(T-956)