Posts Tagged ‘poison ivy’
Risking Exposure
Photos don’t do justice for how much better it looks around the paddock after I mowed yesterday. This is the same spot that irked the horses last time I mowed it. Once again, they were watching me closely, sending signals of shock and indignation over seeing tall grass (and mostly dandelions) go to waste when they would gladly take care of it themselves.
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After I cut that area with the lawn tractor, I mowed down the grass in front of the other paddock using my Stihl gas-powered trimmer. I’m not sure that was a good choice. The section nearest the paved driveway was mostly weeds, and everything is pretty wet, so the pulverized plant matter gets sprayed all over me. If there was any poison ivy in there, I’m thinking that was a good way to give myself a lot of exposure.
I’ve been hoping my skin might get desensitized if I keep experiencing regular exposure, and with Delilah likely brushing past the plants in her daily explorations and my inability to be careful about handling her, I assume that has been happening. I haven’t had a verifiable breakout since the first time it happened earlier this spring.
Lately, we have been confining Delilah to being leashed, so her forays into poison ivy territory have been reduced. Based on that, I should be able to determine whether my reckless exposure to the spray from the trimmer involved any PI or not. You’d think I would’ve developed some skill at identifying the culprit so I could avoid cutting it, but that hasn’t been something I’ve ever felt confident about.
I tend to assume it is everywhere until proven otherwise. In this latest case, time will tell.
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Itchy Dilemma
I’m grateful that I enjoyed 10 months here without this problem, but that time is over and now I face a new challenge that needs to be managed: Poison Ivy. I am sensitive to it. Cyndie says, “That’s an understatement.”
It has been a few years since I have had any serious reactions, so I was beginning to hope my sensitivity was waning. I would most often come in contact with the troublesome urushiol, the sap of the plant, up at our lake place in Hayward, WI. One of those exposures caused such a severe reaction that I had outbreaks of rash all over my body and required medical intervention to control it. I was told that I had likely breathed smoke from one of our outdoor fire pits, where wood with the oil on it was burning.
If I have a cut, or any break in my skin, and the oil gets in there, I will have a systemic reaction, and the rash can appear anywhere and everywhere. So far, with today’s infliction, the rash is limited to my arms and hands. From the location of the affected areas, and the timing of the reaction, we believe that I came in contact with the oil when touching our dog, Delilah, after we finally allowed her to run free on our property.
It is highly unlikely that we would be able to eradicate the poison ivy plant from our 20 acres of fields and woods, and will be impossible to keep Delilah from brushing up against it, so I am facing a new dilemma of how I can avoid exposure. It is dreadful to think that I won’t be able to touch our dog again. We had plans to let her roam inside our house. That seems risky to me now.
It’s really sad for me, because I was so enjoying seeing her run free. Now I have the perspective that the more she runs, the more threatening she becomes to me.
I have some time to think about this, and what I will do about it, because the rash tends to last about 1 – 3 weeks. It has me itching to find a solution for this dilemma.
Relative Something 