Tag: poison ivy

Total and Complete Epic Fail

I was having a really good day, poison ivy wise. No itchy, no nothing. For the first time in over a week I was feeling confident and a smidge optimistic. I even skipped my planned 2:15pm steroid cream/calamine lotion paste of grossness.

Then…

The clock struck 5:30. The work day was over. Happiness. That was followed a millisecond later by the worst blast of itchy I’ve had since before I went to the doctor. Oh my sweet christmas it was awful. I started scratching, I started bleeding, the dead skin was falling off my arm like an avalanche. It was terrible.

I scratched until it hurt too much to scratch and then I cleaned up the bloody mess and put the various goops on.

I was feeling so good about things. I was really, really wrong.

Damn it.

Questions About Meds

Yesterday, after taking my second of three daily doses of steroid anti-itchy cream, I decided to skip a dose. My arm felt so swollen it was a little sore. By the time I reached today’s first dose I felt a lot better and there wasn’t any question of skipping again. I took it.

Today it was my tendinitis’d thumb that has me questioning things. It hurts just as much as before. I don’t feel any improvement, but keeping the ace bandage on does seem to help. The doc gave me two of them saying that the first one was “gonna get smelly.” Can you wash an ace bandage? I was hoping to get through today before I opened the second one, just so that I could say the first one lasted a week. Today when I put it on it was irritating my skin. Itchy. How ironic is that? I decided to leave it off for a while.

On the plus side, the visual signs of the poison ivy are starting to clear up. There’s that. The anti-itch cocktail of the steroid cream and the calamine lotion and little bursts of cortizone cream are helping a lot, but every once in a while the itch gets so bad that I can’t stop myself from scratching. In fact, actually rubbing the goop onto my skin can sometimes lead to scratching like the world is ending.

Things are better. Things are not right. How long is this going to last? Who the hell knows.

Speaking of my thumb… I want to play some guitar today but… I’m a little scared to try. Agents of Shield and laundry are helping to keep me away from the potentially upsetting discovery that it hurts too much to play.

I don’t like this.

Weakness

I am a weak, weak man. Last night I had a moment where I gave in to the poison ivy and scratched a spot on my arm really hard. I took off a layer of skin or so and drew some blood. Ouch. I went to the bathroom to clean it up and while I was there I did it again, right on the worst spot. I scratched hard. I’m pretty sure I took two or three pounds of skin and left a bloody, gory mess. The whole scratching fail lasted for maybe 4 seconds but when it was done it looked like a horror movie set.

Ouch.

Blood, puss, gore. Gross.

It looks and feels a little better now, but it still doesn’t look or feel good. How long is this going to last? Who knows. I do know that if I keep giving in to the itch like that it’s going to last a lot longer than it should.

Thanks, 2020.

So on the Juice

My major league baseball debut has to be imminent. On day three of juicing like a gym rat, my right arm is pretty huge. Of course it’s actually just swollen a little and my skin is so screwed up it feels like it’s pulled tight. Poison Ivy, you know? There are a couple of spots where the rash is actually leaking a little. How gross is that? Whatever, I am huge like Barry Bonds now. Get ready for some seriously long home runs. That garage across the street from Fenway Park is in big trouble.

The Red Sox are playing right now. When the radio broadcast came back from commercials for the bottom of the third inning, the bumper music was Rush – 2112. Sure, we’re losing 2-0 in the third, but Rush will pull us out of it. Sure it’s probably going to be our 10th consecutive loss, but we’ve got Rush.

As I was tying the words, “losing 2-0”, Rafael Devers hit a two run home run to tie the game. Okay. Someone is listening to me. Sure, I’m not going to hit a 500 million dollar lottery…..

……..

………

Nothing?

Oh well. four hours and 45 minutes until I can juice again.

Little Bottle is Little

My little bottle of steroid cream is already running low. I’ve had six doses of juice from it. I might get one more, two if I stretch it. I do get one refill with my prescription, but I was kinda hoping it would last longer than it has. Unless, of course, I won’t need it any longer. It does look a little better than it did 24 hours ago.

Calamine Lotion is kind of a dick. It’s not a lotion, it’s a liquid and it splashes and spills everywhere and it stains everything it touches pink. I’m going to be doing some clothes shopping once all this bullshit is over.

Oh, and my thumb really hurts today.

Hoo-freakin’-ray.