Poison Ivy

Is terrible. I got it for the second time last week. Everyone here has their story, and everyones' story is the worst (to them). But I really do get it badly. The worst. It sucks so bad.

There is no poison ivy in Alaska. There's wild celery, which is awful if you get in the sun after you're exposed (but I've never gotten it) and there's devil's club (nasty stuff too, but no lingering rash that I know of). However, both of those are big (they can grow as tall as me) and with leaves larger than dinner plates, they're obvious so you can avoid them.

Poison Ivy, on the other hand is both sneaky and ubiquitous. I still don't know where I got it last year and, while I do know where and how I got this major outbreak, daily I'm finding more vicious glossy leaves poking their heads up in our yard. It's all through the woods, lining the road sides and hiding under the bark of a tree to emerge triumphantly a foot up.

Unfortunately I have an invincibility complex and even though I thought I was going to DIE when I got it last year, a week ago I attacked a patch growing up the house (the gall!) without sufficient protection. Now I'm so miserable I think I've learned my lesson. I had a blister flare up within 30 minutes (which is when I started washing with Tecnu - great stuff). It was manageable for the first 4-5 days, but it lingers and spreads. I feel like it's still getting worse, 7 days later. We started Prednisone early on to prevent it getting as bad as last year, but I'm still very itchy and splotchy.

Removing the rest from the yard? I've resorted to Round Up (gasp).

Murray and I have decided that New England needed a natural disaster: no earthquakes, tornados or volcanos here. Instead they have poison ivy and lyme ticks.