Once upon a time, I started working at a Christian summer camp. This is actually my third wonderful summer working at this particular camp. We typically have two weeks of staff training before any kids arrive, and on our last day of staff training this year, our job was to clean camp so it was ready when kids and their parents arrived two days later. After a lot of the buildings were cleaned, a bunch of us were sent out to pull weeds by the front sign at the entrance, which is supposed to have nice little flowers and shrubbery around it, but was now covered with weeds and -dare I say- poison ivy.
At first we just avoided the poison ivy and focused on less threatening plants. But then someone came out bringing us "gloves" (plastic kitchen gloves) for the poison ivy, and towels for the prickly weeds that we also were unable to pull up by hand. I put on the plastic kitchen gloves and went about my work of tearing the dreaded poison ivy from its home and tossing it to the ground, trying not to touch it with any part of my body except my gloved hands. I had never had poison ivy before and didn't know if I was allergic to it, but thought it would be best to stay on the safe side and not touch it anyway, since for those sorts of things I am usually in the majority and it's been said that about 90% of the population is rather allergic to urushiol oil, which is what's in poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. (http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/fastfacts.html) So I figured I was probably allergic, and that the only reason I'd never gotten it was because I lacked the exposure (I have always kept a safe distance away from it, ever since I knew what it looked like.)
Needless to say, a couple "bug bites" showed up on my arm. One had a black streak on it which I thought was really weird, and I told a couple people "this is weird, I have this little black thing on my arm," but didn't do anything about it. Except scratch it, naturally. Because it itched.
Fast forward about 5 days, and I was complaining to my team coordinator and friend, KJ, that the weird thing on my arm was spreading and was starting to look infected. I was convinced that it was not poison ivy, because I didn't know that poison ivy could spread, and I didn't know what it looked like (the rash, not the plant). The part with the black streak truly did look infected, and KJ agreed. she gave me some sort of cream and some band aids. When the kids asked me the next day why I had band aids all over my arms, I told them I had infections on my arms. I also had some stuff showing up on my right knee, but it was mostly on the underside of both of my forearms.
I woke up in the mornings that week truly bothered by the itching; the first thing I would do when I woke up was sit up in bed scratching vigorously at my arms and knee. Genius, right?
When we got back to camp, the nurse had already left for the week, and since I was working the weekend, I just had to deal with it until Sunday. The nurse that came in on Sunday looked at me and said, "That's poison ivy." "It is? Awesome..." She told me to go the doctor's and get a prescription for prednisone and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember, and also recommended I get over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream. Whatever that was. I called my mom, who was already aware of the situation, and she said a doctor would be unnecessary, and that hydrocortisone cream would do the trick, which she sent up to camp with dad, who was spending the week there. Dad looked at it, said "Yep, that's a bad case of poison ivy, but we wouldn't send you to the doctor unless it was on your face or in your lungs or something." Which I felt was reasonable.
For a week after that, I slathered hydrocortisone cream all over my itchiness at least 3 times a day. It helped the itching, but the rash was still spreading, still getting worse. It was completely covering my knee, traveling up and down my legs, were on the undersides of both my knees, and spreading up my left arm. Ironically, my right arm, where it originated, had slowed spreading and pretty soon stopped, and the infection went away. It also started itching less in that area.
Sarah, my sister, who also is working at camp this year, and I, got home late that Friday night. Saturday morning, Mom looked at my poison ivy, which I'd had for over 2 weeks at this point. She called her dad, who had known of a tried-and-true over-the-counter solution called Zanfel. But he also must have suggested I go to urgent care, because that's where mom took me. Apparently 2 weeks and still spreading was not good.
But when we got there, I wasn't alone. There was a girl there with poison ivy absolutely covering her face and neck. Since I have none in those areas, I almost felt unworthy to be there, especially seeing how miserable she was... She looked at me and I looked at her and neither of us said a word. But I looked away first.
Because there had been a big windstorm/thunderstorm the night before, urgent care had no electricity, but was still up and running. I went in, they checked out my problem, asked my a few questions about it, and decided I not only needed steroid pills (Prednisone, which the camp nurse had recommended to me a week before), but also a steroid shot in my butt. Woohoo. We also got the "ridiculously expensive" Zanfel. (I put that in quotations not because it isn't true, but because I am quoting my mom and her dad.)
I have been diligently taking the horrible-tasting steroid pills, have used Zanfel in the shower twice now, and my poison ivy is finally drying up. I stopped my use of the hydrocortisone cream because after doing a bit of research, I found that the cream moisturized areas that should be drying up in order to heal, and therefore sometimes did more harm than good in the long run. I was pretty close to trying an epsom salt bath, which my friend Janina recommended, but didn't get the opportunity, and at this point probably don't need anymore anyway.
And last night, I finally slept through the night without waking up every few hours with the unquenchable urge to scratch. It was glorious.
Moral of the story: it is just as important to know what poison ivy the rash looks like as it is to know what poison ivy the plant looks like.
God bless.
