Poison ivy

I'm behind on my posts this month. Part of the reason is that I had a bad case of poison ivy and I'm just now recovering. When I look back at how I got  it, I have to say I was pretty stupid. But it didn't seem like I was taking a risk at the time.

We have a large area behind our house that was overgrown with bushes and weeds. I used to get poison ivy when I would work back there but that area was cleaned out by a landscaping crew. So, I figured the poison ivy was gone, too. So, when the weeds and bushes inevitably started to grow back, I wanted to keep it open so I'd run the lawnmower back there as often as I could.

The problem was that part of the area was very steep and the oil in the lawnmower engine would get into parts of the engine it shouldn't and you could smell the oil burning. So, I figured the way around that was to use our weed wacker. It worked well but as I went along, I noticed pieces of the weeds getting on me. I washed off when I got in the house but, obviously, not well enough. Due to the weed wacker throwing things everywhere, it even got on to my face and very close to my eyes.

So, when I started to notice itchy areas, I had big trouble. My eyes puffed up so that I had trouble seeing and the rash was in so many places that I had trouble treating it. I ended up calling the doctor and getting a prescription for Prednisone (to fight the allergic reaction) and a hydro cortisone cream to help stop the itching. The biggest problem was that the itching was worst at night and I didn't sleep well for over a week. Lack of sleep makes everything harder. It was so bad, I had to take some time off from work.

But I did get better, of course. As I mentioned before, it's too bad we don't get better all of a sudden. Getting better always seems to come in waves. I'd feel less itchy for a while and then a few minutes later, I'd be scratching like a mad man. But then, one morning, I woke up and realized I'd slept through night. What a great feeling. Now if could just keep our cat Henry from crying outside our bedroom door in the middle of the night because he is bored and wants someone to get up and play or talk with him or feed him.