Poison Ivy

"One man's poison ivy is another man's spinach."  

 

This is the sort of quote you land upon when you Google "quotes about poison ivy."

 

I spent the other day tending my roses – which are looking lovely, by the way – and sitting in the cool shade with my hands in the dirt.  The kids buzzed around me, the chickens begged for worms and cats lazed all around.  Kids came and distracted me from work, begging for snacks and for help resolving all manner of petty arguments.  Time passed, I took a break for lunch, came back to it and finally finished the job.  I was so proud and it did/does look great!  I went inside, tired and happy and jumped into the shower.  Apparently it was already too late.

The next morning I was surprised to see just a little poison ivy on my leg.  Of course I had expected this but just a little, mind you.  I knew there was poison ivy around but I thought I was being careful. I was wearing gloves and being careful not to touch anything with the gloves on.  No scratching the face or running your fingers through your hair (learned the first one the hard way).  Still, I won’t deny that I knew I was near it.

Tuesday brought a few more patches and along with that, the incredible urge to scratch my skin right off my body.  I was going CRAZY with the itching.  Completely uncontrollable, couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.  Benedryl was my new BFF.  Still, nodding off all day long just to keep from scratching wasn’t feasible.  So I dropped my buddy “B” and headed off to begin my day.  Oh my WOW did I want to scratch.  Everyone that saw me told me to “knock it off”.  I vowed that I would but I secretly scratched anyway.  Don’t even think about judging me.  As if you haven’t done something equally sneaky. Please.

Tuesday night I went to bed with the “one two punch” of my favorite bedtime buddy - a couple of Benadryls.  Woke up Wednesday and I was more than a little taken aback at the lastest happening with my leg.  Huh.  That’s kind of a LOT of poison ivy on there, isn’t it? And that one section there looks a little strange. I’ll keep an eye open.

Thursday morning I was becoming concerned.  The leg was feeling pretty painful and throbbing.  The skin on my calf had become quite hardened and shiny.  I asked a co-worker (who also happens to be a nurse) what she thought about it. 

“Cellulitis,” she said.  “Let me draw a circle around it with a Sharpie marker so they can see how big it is.  You need to go see the doctor. Today.”

“OK,” I said and called my Doctor.

They couldn’t get me in until the next day.  But they might have an appointment open today, this afternoon.  “How quickly can you be here?”

Sigh. I was right in the middle of my lab reports, kind of had my groove and was knocking them out.  Didn’t really want to put off today what I could do tomorrow.  In hindsight, silly.

My other co-worker, also an RN, continued to suggest that I take the earlier appointment. Geesh, it’s what you get when you work with nurses.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anyway, I went to the afternoon appointment.  The MD didn’t seem very concerned, “maybe just some cellulitis”, she said.  “I’m going to put you on Bactrim.  Take these as directed and that should take care of it.”

Friday was insane and I can’t even remember a single thing I did.  Dementia setting in?  That you can judge.

Saturday. Running around, doing chores, chasing kids, folding laundry, paying bills, acting like a maniac.  Lesia stopped over to hang out for a bit.  She saw my leg, or more likely, I asked her to look at it and it stopped her dead in her tracks.  I’ll admit it was kind of gross.  (Which did not in the least stop me from taking pictures of it.  I also have pictures of my shingles incident and my eyelash grow kit which, by the way, didn't work.

Now here’s where we weave the web, so to speak.  I agreed that it was time to contact my doctor’s office again.  I knew they were closing in like 15 minutes and I could never get there so I just asked for advice on what to do.  Turns out they have an after hours clinic.  I was going to be open until 5:00 and I should try to get there.  So I did.  The MD I saw was very nice.  He really took the time to listen to my story and try to figure out the next steps.  But you could tell he was more than a little nervous.  Dead gal walking here?

“I’m a little concerned about this,“ he said with a alight Indian accent.  “It looks like it’s starting to involve your knee (which had just started to hurt a little while ago) and that could mean that it has gone septic.  We could take a chance and give you an antibiotic shot to try and cover it but I would really suggest that you go to the Emergency Department.”  Sidebar: My sisters go crazy when I refer to the Emergency Department at the UM Hospital as the ED.  “It’s the ER,” they shout in unison, with a special emphasis on the R.  “Not in the UM world, it’s not.  It’s the ED, Emergency DEPARTMENT. Look it up.  Just because someone makes a TV SHOW called ER doesn’t mean it’s real.” This might suggest that I’m not the kind of person who should be so quickly put on steroids, hmmm?

So, with a little trepidation, I headed for the ED (It’s my blog afterall) to see what they had to say about the matter.  I showed them my leg at the front desk and they got me right in.  Must’ve been a slow night.  Nurse checked me in and said, “We’ve got a room ready for you right now.” This NEVER happens for me.  I’m the one who ends up going there on the same night as everyone else within a 50 mile radius.  I’ve waited HOURS in that lobby.  I’ve paid my dues.

And so it began.  I laid on the gurney and showed everyone my leg.  Anyone that walked through the door, I asked if they wanted to see it.  It was kind of weird, me doing that, but I just liked seeing the reactions.  Most were able to hold it together but a few of the opened with “Wow. Can I touch it?” I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to hear but it wasn’t that.

After much looking and touching, they decided that they wanted to put me on an antibiotic protocol.  They were going to treat it like cellulitis, hit it hard with antibiotics and watch it fade.  So off I went to the step down unit in the ER (you happy?).  It was a little more private and a little more quiet.  They stuck me with an IV and placed a port.  Yikes. Gonna be a long night, I guess.  They hit me with the first bag of antibiotics.  It burned a little bit when it went in but it wasn’t unbearable, just uncomfortable.  Then they said they’d be back for the next dose and they were.  It went like that through the night.  I’d wake up to fine someone hooking me up to an IV and waiting for the burn.

By the following morning when the MD came to check on me, I wasn’t looking any better.  As he so sweetly put it, “You failed the protocol”.  Oh.

“It’s not too big a deal actually,” he said. “We’ll just move you to a  more comfortable space, kind of an observation area and we’ll give it another day.”  ANOTHER DAY? Oh this is not good.  I’ve never been kept longer than a day unless it was a scheduled thing.  Never.  I actually PROMISED Zoe that I would be home the next day.  Way. To. Go.

So they wheeled me over to the other section, which was definitely nicer and got me all situated.  They started another bag of antibiotics and I asked again about some Benedryl.  I swear I don’t have a problem I was just ITCHING like mad!  She came back with a vial instead of a pill.  “What’s this?” I asked.

“Oh, the MD wanted to get it to you more quickly and this allows us to do that.  It’s the same medication just a different route.” Ok. Sounds good.

Wowza.  She slipped that needle in there and I was transported.  Away from my itchy twitchy body and off to someplace beautiful.  And then I fell fast asleep – narcolepsy style.

From there the “every six hour” dance began.  Vital signs every 4 hours, medication every 6 hours.  But they were so kind about it.  The nurses, the techs, the doctors and everyone were so kind to me.  

Then they decided to hit me with steroids as well so we added that to the mix.  Being in the hospital is never quite as restful as you hope it will be.  At all. Really thought I'd knock out some reading, catch up on my Facebook stuff and rest.  Not so much.

The combination of the steroids and the massive amounts of antibiotics in my system seemed to be just the ticket. The leg started to look better! To me anyway. Everyone else still deemed it fairly disgusting, but whatever.

I was ready to go home! Yay!! I went to reach into my bag for my clothes and realized that I had SENT MY PANTS HOME WITH MY MOM. That just seems to be how things roll for me sometimes. 

Anyway, I'm back home again and nursing my leg back to health. The steroids have me completely whacked out and Joe is sleeping with one eye open. 

Also, I went on a semi-maniacal poison ivy kill mission with the Round-Up today.  Imagine me maliciously aiming the sprayer at the poison ivy that got me and making all kinds of crazy statements about "you'll never get me again" and "straight to hell with you". That sort of thing. It felt pretty good. I may do it again tomorrow.