An unwelcome surprise

Having spent the last few weekends in the woods either hiking or running trails, cuts and scrapes and bug bites aren't uncommon. I'll go days with razor blade like swatches all over my legs that make me look like I enjoy self mutilation. Not like that, I don't.

Come to find out, a few days after being entrenched in the woods for 28 hours, I have a wonderful case of poison ivy. It really is pretty... all the pus pouring out of my left knee and the scabbing from all the scratching.

What I thought was an irritated scratch mark from all the overgrowth was apparently the beginnings of poison ivy. I didn't think much of it until I couldn't stop scratching it, and then I'd wake up scratching my leg, and then it grew to the size of softball (in diameter). I've had cellulitis before, and thought it might be that, so I thought I'd do a little 'test' to verify. Wednesday night, after cleaning it out and applying OTC meds to it, I drew around the irritation with a felt tip pen. If the infection was outside the mark in the morning, then it was time to see a Doctor. Thurday AM, it was about 1/2" outside, so I decided to go to Urgent Care that night.

My GF had to make a trip up to Beltsville, MD, and we happened to find a walk-in center in the area that takes my insurance, so we planned on stopping by. It was a short wait to be called to have the PA suggest poison ivy and then have the doctor make the diagnosis by saying 'yep - contact dermatitis. poison ivy. why didn't you wear pants?' and writing me a prescription for 'The Cream'. I wanted more than my copays worth of his time, so I proceeded to ask questions about cleaning it out, how long I'll have it, can I pass it on by riding a tractor, will I get big muscles from using The Cream? Okay, so maybe I didn't ask all of those, but I wanted to test his knowledge and see how many big words he could throw at me while I sat there nodding my head like a bobblehead. After a total of 20 minutes, I walked out with my prescription in had and a total of $25.93 spent! (copay and cost of the cream).

The BEST part of all of this is that I have a wedding to attend this weekend. The state of my legs before the poison ivy incident already warranted pants for the affair, but the PI validated them.

This, too, shall pass. I just want a good nights sleep and hope to get rid of it soon.