So, last week, I pulled a bunch of Poison Ivy off a fence and tree in my back yard. Poison Ivy and I have an understanding - I look at it, and it makes my life hell.
So, I double-gloved up, and careful as a navy ordinance man, I set to removing said bane. As usual, I'm very mindful not to touch any of it or let it touch my clothes. That usually works for about fifteen minutes. Two hours later... I'm done and the noxious vines are bagged and ready for trash pickup - three giant carpenter bags worth!
The next day, I only find one tiny little blip of it on my inner forearm. I have to admit, I was damn near close to doing a snoopy victory dance at that point. The day after that, a few more popped up, and by day three, I had about six little colonies of microblisters growing from the cursed stuff!
I'm pretty good about not itching them, but the hell-spawn tend to burst open now and then and ooze for the blatant heck of it, which may or may not make them spread.
So, I went through all that crap till yesterday, where they had pretty much all dried out by now and I was just waiting on all the tiny scabs to heal.
That evening, taking a shower after teaching karate classes, I noticed a red line running from a bright red scab on my inner forearm, all the way up my arm to under my armpit. The line itself was hot to the touch and tender. I initially thought, "I don't reminder getting fingernail scrapped up and under my arm."
Good thing I have LadyZ to ask the age old questions, such as: "does this look right to you?" She being a nurse, immediately recognized it as an infection and the red line as serious enough to suggest going to the emergency room.
I, being the old-schooler I am, and knowing that it's a six hour carnival of fun visiting the local daily-overwhelmed emergency room, opted for the 'pop 1000mg of old antibiotics lying around that no one ever finishes (like they are supposed to)' route.
Of course, this gave LadyZ time to do online research into the seriousness of things like sepsis, while we waited for the meds to kick in, which ultimately led to heading out to the ER anyway. Oh joy!
It was a good day though - we were in and out in a record four hours! Bliss!
The Augmentin I had taken earlier actually drove the red line back some by the time we were leaving. The ER proscribed another aggressive round of antibiotics and steroids! And told us to keep and eye on it, ect, ect. Cool! Awl Be Baahk!!!
Author
Topic: Poison Ivy to Sepsis (Yeah!!) (Read 8432 times)