I was power washing the deck, and the yard does need a little work around it. The grass needs cutting and several bushes need some big-time trimming. Also there were mosquitoes, though I did manage to get rid a few with well-aimed 1550-psi blasts of water. As often happens in such case, I foolishly did the work while wearing shorts and came in rather itchy. I have allergies, so that's par for me. This time things went a bit worse.
Over the next couple days it got worse, with the skin turning red, firm, and bumpy. Oh, and itchy, though if you've ever had poison ivy, etc., that goes without saying. That's bad enough, but here's where that bandage in the photo comes in. When I went out to do the deck washing I already had scratch right there. Well, evidently when you get poison ivy on an existing scratch it itches worse. I resisted scratching though, and put on some neosporin with an analgesic. The overall itch persisted, though, so I gave that leg a good scrub-down. In doing so I scrubbed away the scab. That may have been the big mistake because it immediately started weeping clear yellow fluid. I ran around looking for the bandages & tape (why we don't keep them in a handy kit is beyond me) with the fluid running down onto my foot. Nasty.
I put together a makeshift bandage with a couple gauze sponges held together with three bandaids instead of the tape I never found. My wife went out and got some calomine, gauze pads, and some rubber stretchy tape that will breathe and won't stick to my hairs. Only problem is it won't restick if you unstick it, so you have to make sure it's at the right tightness the first time.
It was still weeping the next day, even after a saline compress, so we tried to get an appointment to see a doctor. It was the 4th so they were closed, so we decided to give it another day. This morning it was still weeping (though perhaps slightly less so) so we called again. Still closed. We went to a nearby walk-in clinic we've used before and the doctor there looked it over. He said it looked like poison ivy, and that the sore looked to be just becoming infected. He squeezed on a glob of neosporin the size of a pecan half and put a large stick-on bandaid on it. He also gave me a shot of cortisone to speed the poison ivy clearing and gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and an oral steroid.
A couple hours later I noticed the weeping was passing through a wrinkle in the bandaid and soaking into my sock so I changed to the dressing I have on in the picture. (The dark part is the stretchy rubber tape overlapping.) It's much more comfortable and should absorb much better. I globbed on a bit of neosporin myself, as well.
Hopefully I will be able to report some good news about this soon.
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