My Nemesis: Poison Ivy
[ sycobuny on Fri Mar 28 at 02:23 PM // category: health, health, life // comments: 3 ]
I think I’m slowly falling to pieces. I mean very slowly. It’d probably be imperceptible, but I’m blogging about it and thus the situation exists (this is my personal take on Descartes).
I started off last week feeling not too shabby. No colds really, just the occasional realization that I’ll be going bald in the not too distant future (I’m looking at you, male ancestors). That’s relatively painless though, except for the laughs I get whenever I try to hit on hot chicks in a Rogaine commercial. Those cut deep.
Then, The Shed™ happened.
I like my parents. I like helping them out. I like spending time with them. I also enjoy putting things together, some occasionally physical labor to offset my otherwise sedentary lifestyle at my desk job. So, I was going to go to my parents’ place this past Saturday and hang out, and when my mother said they were putting up a shed they bought, I said why the hell not. I spent Saturday leveling the ground in their yard and putting together the base frame upon which we were to set the shed. No big deal, I go home and all is ducky, with the promise of more work Sunday.
Sunday comes and goes, we fight and fight and fight with the shed, and just after the sun goes down and the floodlights get put up, we realize we’re out of washers for the screws (to minimize potential rust). Well, damn. Oh, well, it’s largely in place and looking quite shed-like. I go home and all is content with the world.
Monday: I notice some bumps on my arm. Oh, hell, it’s poison ivy. OK, I just don’t scratch it and it doesn’t seem serious, but I put some band-aids over it to help me not scratch it even more (less than not at all?). The band-aids come off at the end of the day, and the bumps have multiplied. Oh well, still not itching real bad. I go to sleep. I wake up, there are bumps on my other arm, and my neck is itching (though no bumps). To cut an increasingly long story short: I am now marked in various random places (my legs and the top of my feet? The hell?) and the itching is getting worse. I accidentally scratch open my feet without realizing it was poison ivy at first and thus prone to popping. Band-aids to the rescue again!
Whatever, poison ivy sucks, but now it takes me a while to wash my hands because I’m trying not to agitate the spots near and on my hands. Then yesterday, I try to open a sealed-with-sugar bottle of Nestea, and I somehow manage to slice up my palm in that strange crevice between my thumb and forefinger. Well, shit, now my hand has gills. Plus, band-aids won’t stay on it. I’ve gone through four in the past day on this one spot, not to mention the band-aids everywhere else that the poison ivy is intensely irritated at (places where otherwise clothes would rub against and agitate it).
Now, my index finger’s nail has gotten separated from the skin under it slightly. It’s not bleeding but it’s that special kind of annoyingly painful that makes you want to beat on something when you hit it wrong. As it turns out, I do that a lot when typing (this blog has been fun). I’m debating putting a band-aid on it to keep it from getting irritated more, but then I’ll be composed of 90% band-aids and the number will inevitably only climb from there. I’m watching out for rakes because I swear to god I’m concerned I’ll accidentally step on one and have it smack me in the face for the comedy coup-d’état.
Every so often I have a bout of relatively minor problems that combined together are either dangerous or just really funny/annoying (the funny part is inapplicable to me). A few years ago I had some sort of bizarre foot fungus infection that caused my lymph nodes in my legs to swell like balloons and was intensely painful. I used Lotrimin for a week and never since then have I had a foot fungus problem. I had pink-eye three separate times in a 2 and a half month period about 3 years ago, and never since then have had an incidence. It’s just plain bizarre, but every now and again something just gets into my system and makes it go haywire. Maybe it’s the price I pay for not falling ill very often.
In closing: screw you, poison ivy. You ruined my life (temporarily)!
-- sycobuny // 2008.03.28 @ 02:23 PM
3 Comments
Comment #9
[ rakaur on Sat Mar 29 at 02:32 AM ]
Sorry to hear about the poison ivy. Have you heard about my life-crippling chronic pain disorder? It’s almost as bad.
-- rakaur // 2008.03.29 @ 02:32 AM
Comment #11
[ w00t on Sat Mar 29 at 06:43 PM ]
I don’t know whether I’m just lucky, or whether it just isn’t in any parts of the world I visit, but I’ve never been hit by this crap.
I guess I should stop being smug before I get hit by a meteorite or something though.
-- w00t // 2008.03.29 @ 06:43 PM
Comment #12
[ rakaur on Sun Mar 30 at 02:45 PM ]
Apparently I had it once when I was a baby and I’ve been immune to it ever since. I can rub the shit all over me and not get the rash, or any sign of trouble at all.
I AM INVINCIBLE!
-- rakaur // 2008.03.30 @ 02:45 PM
