'You Asked'...

Tony at 'Creative Type Dads' and Diana from 'Stuck in Elmo's World' have inquired as to how I managed such a drastic rash from Poison Ivy.

First let me say that my reaction to contact with the Ivy is nothing new. In high school, on two separate occassions, I had to rub ice on my eyelids just so I could open them to go to school in the morning. I, who burn faster than paper soaked with lighter fluid, would spend weeks at the public pool because the chlorine content in the water was the second fastest non-medical remedy to an Ivy rash I found. The first was using the juice from the stem of a Jewelweed plant. That stuff is a factual miracle in nature!

So knowing my history, one might guess my reaction to being invited to help my sister clear some of her land would be a resounding 'No.'

Instead, I promised to help. So I showed up in shirt-sleeves and dragged vines from trees to be burned with brush pulled out of the ground. It was a lot of fun and, yes, I was aware that the vines, some almost as thick as my wrist, were Poison Ivy vines. Yet, I still wrapped them around my wrist and dragged them to the ground or wrapped chains around them and pulled them out of the trees and lugged them to the bonfire to be burned.

Yes, I am aware that burning Ivy is also not the ideal way of disposal.

Yes, I spent the last 2 weeks with my arms and abdomen covered in salves and lotions. Until I had enough and visited the local family practioner. There I obtained the 3rd most effective cure for this rash.

Now I am merely days and not week(s) away from overcoming this abysmal rash.