Itchy! (and a bit gross- sorry)

So I’ve managed to live in the North-East United States for just over 25 years and never fall foul of poison ivy… until now.

It’s pretty amazing when you think that I’m in the woods with the dog every day- and about half the year in shorts. But on Monday I noticed a small group of red bumps on one leg that I thought were bug bites, and by today it had spread wildly- and to the other leg too, so I went to Urgent Care and it is indeed a classic, rampant poison ivy rash.

Turns out that even if you get all the oil that caused the rash off your skin, once the rash blisters it can be spread by contact- but only to yourself. So I can’t give it to Jackie, but I can give it to myself (which must be how it went from one leg to the other). So I have the rash on both legs slathered in bacitracin and hidden under gauze as they are blistered and a bit weepy, I have cortisone cream to put on any new areas that appear, and I’m on a high dose of Prednisone (an oral steroid) to get it all under control.

So, as I’m still itchy as hell, and as apparently one of the side effects of the Prednisone is to make you jittery and irritable, I apologize in advance if I’m a bit of an ass for the next week or so 🙂