Posts Tagged ‘poison ivy’
Flowers Show
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Not far behind all the fast growing grass we have around here, flowers are beginning to display their best selves for our delight. Like so many things this spring, it seems like they have just appeared out of nowhere. If we neglect to walk around the house and property for one day, we miss the grand entrance of some plant or another.
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Unfortunately for me, the weeds grow just as fast and get just as tall as some of the desirable flowering plants. I’m never sure which is which, and therefore am unwilling to be very zealous about weeding our landscape.
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The emergence of the flowers is matched closely with the appearance of pestering flying insects, several of which have a taste for blood. While stepping in close to capture the little blossoms on this flowering tree, I fell under attack from a swarm of tiny flying things, a few of which seemed to be driven toward burying themselves in my hair. That’s a joy.
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Speaking of that kind of joy, while working to clear trees from the drainage ditch along our southern border last weekend, I was sure that a mosquito almost large enough to pass for a humming-bird was responsible for the giant welt that swelled and itched when I came in for the night. I showed the welt to Cyndie right away to see what she thought of it. Inconclusive response. It had quickly gotten bigger than any mosquito bite I had ever experienced before.
In a few days, it became painfully obvious that it was not a bug bite. I’m guessing I unknowingly handled some poison ivy down in that ditch, then directly transferred it to my neck when trying to wipe off dripping sweat. The swelling and wide area of reaction is so distinctly different than the usual itchy spots that appear on my skin, I believe it suggests the level of exposure was an order of magnitude higher than my usual experience.
I remembered that my doctor advised I try an antihistamine to control the reaction, before resorting to a steroid prescription. That seems to be working for me, to suppress the swelling and itching, but it doesn’t necessarily shorten the average two weeks duration like steroids will. That’s okay. I dislike the prescription stuff enough to be willing to endure the duration of the process using antihistamines alone for now.
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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 