Leaves of three, let them be...whatever

I woke up early this morning with the familiar itching again on my inner right arm. I got up and went to check it out and surely enough, my yardwork from a couple of days ago has brought me a new breakout of poison ivy. Now friends and family, let me tell you, it won't just be a spot or two. Oh no, like I do most things in life, I have to do it with full force and enthusiasm. I will soon be covered enough to require a doctor's visit and possible steroid medication or an injection of steroids to make the vicious stuff go away.

My earliest memory of an allergic reaction to this stuff is a painful one from church camp at Bear Creek in Marianna, AR years ago. I was probably about ten and we had gone on one of those famous hikes in the woods in the 100 degree heat and then later that night I broke out. They tried the pink calamine lotion, well, actually they COVERED my little skinny self in it to the point that the other kids were making fun of me. I was never so miserable!!! I continued to break out and then began to have problems breathing so they took me to the ER and my parents were called to pick me up. Since then, it is just about an annual event that I have a break out.

One year, I remember I had been to Glo and Hounie's (my brother's nickname--that is another story) home in Harrison helping Glo with some landscaping and got into what I thought was some poison ivy there. I didn't realize it, but it was really a bad reaction to some new medication I was on and NOT poison ivy that time. It was very serious before I went to the doctor and found out what was going on.

Steve gets it some too. Usually when he trims the hedge near our house. He gets just a few spots of it, treats it (just ignore it, he says!!!) and then it goes away. There have even been two times when I got it FROM HIM just by skin contact when I didn't even go outside! Good heavens!

So why does this stuff even exist? I try to get my Roundup out and get rid of it, but of course it is almost as persistent as bermuda grasss in flower beds. It thrives. It survives the heat, the Roundup, the drought...you can pull it out by its roots and it will come back. More than anything else. Maybe it goes out there each spring with full force and enthusiasm too. Just to do it's thing, whatever it is. If someone figures out what that thing is supposed to be, let me know. In the mean time, I'm off to find some benadryl and the calamine lotion.