24 July 2010
302
R. Linda:
How is it that the best intentions can lead the 'intender' into poison ivy -- quite literally. Let me explain. Next to our abode is a forest of tangled pricker bushes, weeds, grasses, a virtual mayhem of vegetation that is unsightly and thriving for no reason but perhaps to look the ugly mass of green that it be. Considering that it wasn't there when we first moved in only shows the reality of my non-gardening skills. This weedy place is too near the house to mow, and at first, I was out with the weed whacker, but as time went on, the whacker's plastic string broke and after trying to replace it with new and becoming frustrated with my non-mechanical skills, I gave it up, and it is in the shed with the dead car plough. Therefore, the brambles and weeds have taken over that side of the abode.
For a long time, the wife has been asking me to clean it up, but I never got around to it. Then, with the success of her salad garden, she decided to try her hands at a kitchen herb garden, thanks in part to me own traitorous Mam. Tonya wanted one of those small patches where one grows the small seasonings that can be dried and kept over the winter to induce delicious flavours and aromas in soups, meat dishes, etc.
But I, being hung up on spending me free time in a hammock with a glass of iced tea and a newspaper, just couldn't get my butt out of the hammie to go dig up the brambles until the wife came out to tell me she had just got off the phone with me own sainted Mam and they were talking about when me Mam comes she be going to make my favourite dish, her homemade Irish stew. She was telling Tonya that she couldn't bring the herbs she needed through customs and asked if we have this and that herb here, so she could season the dish properly. Then she mentioned she kept her own kitchen garden and had fresh put-up herbs for the winter, and did Tonya also have one that she might have a wee bit of thyme, parsley, marjoram, tarragon, fennel and such.
"Why we buy those at the market," says I.
"Yes, but your mother said homegrown is the best. When fresh, you get the full flavour of the herb, and you don't know how old those jars of herbs are that have been standing on the shelf in the supermarket."
"Old herbs?" I questioned and got no answer. "So, what are you sayin' ta me?"
"Well, Gabe, the sun hits that side of the house where that weed patch is overgrowing, and I think that would be a perfect place since you can't mow there for a kitchen garden. We can eliminate the unsightly mess and put in a pretty little garden."
"Tonya, it be too late to plant a garden."
"No, the Agway has mature plants, I can get those, and we are in business. Remember Gabe, Irish stew, homemade by your little apple-cheeked grey-haired Mum."
Well, that was enough for me. I would do it by cracky.
So, next thing, I was out in the shed pulling out the shovel, pitchfork, hoe, clippers and wheelbarrow. I couldn't find me garden gloves, and I should have changed from shorts and a sleeveless shirt to something more weed-appropriate, but I was in Irish stew trance I was and set out to do some damage to invasive weeds, which YOU know all about being almost cited for weeds in your Colorado yard by the likes of Rita Punta.
There I was, ripping and pulling with my bare hands and seeing plants, I had no clue what they were. In particular, there was this shiny green vine that had things like beans growing off it, no clue what it was. I also found we had blackberry bushes growing freely in the mess. And those things have stickers like wild rose and wowey wow wow was I full of the tiny prickers when I was done. Add to that there was one small cluster of poison ivy that Tonya had sprayed with a special poison ivy begone. It was red and brown and pretty dried out, and stupid me thought the poison was also dried out. WRONG!
I got the earth turned after I had uprooted and cleared out the weedy, unwanted stuff. Tonya looked at it in approval and went off to get her herb plants. I, a dirty mess, was exhausted. I took meself to a lawn chair by the porch and laid meself out and fell asleep. When Tonya pulled in with the wee ones and the new herb plants, I had slept an hour out in the warm breeze. I helped her plant the herbs since I was a dirty mess as it was, and then it was dinner time. I needed a shower, but I was hungry, so I drove three towns over to the Taco Bell for tacos for all of us and back. I noticed as I sat in the drive-thru that me hand had an itch which I scratched unthinkingly. Next, I know it is a slightly raised welt. When I got home, I put some Benadryl gel on it, which seemed to take care of it, and later, I noticed the welt was gone.
I alternately dug stickers out of the skin on me arms and legs as Ton and I lounged with wine coolers after she had got the kiddies to bed and dinner was over. Somehow, me exertions in the hot weather and the wine cooler lulled me into a pretty fitful sleep out on the porch. It was a hot box in the house, so Tonya got a light blanket and covered me, leaving me to sleep it outside.
Well, that didn't last all night because somewhere around 3:30, the rain woke me up! There was lightning and a distant rumble of thunder that I had incorporated into a dream I was having about being back in Scotland, lost with Weasil, while Wolfie was off getting petrol. It was storming, and Weasil was laughing as I was in a panic that Wolfie wouldn't find his way back in the dark storm, and we'd be lost to the elements that were getting more and more out of control as we stood getting drenched. It was just as me hands went around Weasil's throat that I woke up to find out it was no dream I was drenched, it was thundering and there was lightning and the rain was pounding as I wrung me hands around the sodden blanket I had mistook for Weasil's scrawny neck.
Tonya was sleeping through it. Well, why not? She was inside all cosy, and I was out in it! So, being sopping wet, I went to the laundry room, peeled off the wet clothes, and got into her housecoat since it was the only thing there. I know a sight I must have been, but it was dry, I was wet, and well, I didn't want to wake the house. I noticed the dirt between me toes and knew going to bed would be a no-no. I was full of garden soil prickers, and so I took meself to the lounge and made meself as comfy as I could on the couch.
When I woke up, it was to the sound of children laughing. Both of them! Standing at my head, the blanket was thrown back to reveal yours truly wrapped in a pink kimono.
"Daddy, you look sillwee," O'Hare said pointing and laughing, "dressed in momma's kokkomo."
Oh yeah, ha, ha, ha.
Tonya handed me a cup of coffee and apologised for leaving me to the elements, but was grateful I had the wherewithal to not get in a clean bed looking like I did, though she wasn't too keen I was wearing, as the Airport calls it her pink kokkomo. Then she squinted her eyes at me and came close to me face.
"Gabe, your neck has got puckers on it."
OH NO, HICKEYS? From where, from who? Not Lois sneaking over in the night? My worst fears came to my brain, and I stood right up. I knew I looked ridiculous in the pink kimono, I stood for a second, handed the coffee cup to Tonya and ran for a mirror. Thank God they weren't hickeys they were bug bites. Or so I thought. I had been out there with the mosquito population (which has been pretty low this year, but I was sure there were still some of those buggers around). I decided to gulp down me coffee and forego breakfast for a shower. Tonya told me the welts didn't look like bug bites but poison ivy. She gave me a bar of poison ivy soap, and I was sure it wasn't that at all but a reaction from the sticker bushes.
I showered with lukewarm water just in case it was poison ivy, used the soap and saw that me arms were covered in these red poxes. I towelled off, got dressed and slathered on Benadryl gel. I popped a Benadryl tablet in my mouth for good measure. I went outside, sat down and sipped me second cup of coffee. The breeze was warm as I sat there incubating the red bumps; I noticed with the heat, they had formed a red mass indistinguishable from the bumps. Well, what was this, I wondered. Hum, I don't think this is good. Was I allergic to something? Was this a contact rash, or was it something unheard of? I didn't know.
I went inside, and Tonya took a double take.
"Those look like hives." She stated, for the record.
Hives? Now I had gone from poison ivy to contact rash to hives. Very good. A mystery rash that was becoming not so much a rash but what looked like huge burn marks that itched like a son of a gun. I didn't know what else to do, it was Friday, I had taken the day off, and I was getting nothing done because I itched. Tonya went about her housework, the kiddies amused themselves with their toys, and I, sat around getting redder and pinker and itchier.
Finally, I slathered on more gel, popped another pill and went to sleep in the guest room since the wife didn't want to chance getting whatever it was I had erupting on me skin.
The next morning (after a very itchy and restless night), I awoke to being unable to see. My eyes were swollen shut. I went directly to the mirror, and OH MY GOD, me whole face and eyes were swollen beyond recognition. I looked like a 100-year-old man with puffiness and lines everywhere. My arms were sporting golf ball-like red patches, and all around my navel was this huge red patch of swollen skin. I was horrified at me own appearance I was!
I went out and immediately frightened both boyos. When they saw me, they screamed and started crying for their Mam. There was a scary man in the house, they were shouting. Of course, she came running out of the kitchen with a broom to protect them and started swinging at the scary man who sounded a lot like her husband. She stopped and looked at me intently. Then her mouth dropped open in utter surprise at recognising me.
I left her standing there and called my doctor. It was Saturday, the office was closed, but hold on for the on-call nurse. I did. She came on, I told her me woes, and she made me an appointment. I was like, wow, I need a prescription, not an appointment to see a nurse who can't write one. But what choice? She said it was imperative I be seen to make sure if it was poison ivy, it wasn't in the eyes. Oh, woe was me. I got meself dressed while Tonya got the old couple to mind the kiddies and off we went all the way to Manchester which is a drive, but it was where the nurse was.
I walked into an office full of people. They all stopped reading their magazines and looked at me. Then, when I went to sit down, the entire right side shifted to the left side, and I was left to sit there by me lonesome looking quite garish I be sure. They stared at me sitting there. Tonya handed over me paperwork at the front desk. Luckily, I was called right away, probably not to infect the others in the waiting room.
Preliminaries over a real doctor came in to see me.
"Whoa, look at you," he said with a smile. I hear you were out in the garden with the poisonous vines. Let me take a look and see what's what."
I held out me arms and he ran his latex-gloved hands over the reddish bumps, did that hurt, did that itch, all questions I answered in the affirmative. He sat there staring at the bumps. Would I show him the ones on my stomach? I did. Let's see the ones on the back. Lift up the shirt, please; I did. Legs next, and I say the ones on the upper arm disappeared and now are on me wrists. Migration? Hum says he, contact rash? Or hives. Hum.
He told me chicken pox was going around, but I didn't have the pustules that would be like that or the oozing that would be from poison ivy. He sat there for a long time. Then he got up, telling me he'd be right back. He came back with this huge medical book. He opens it up and looks up contact rashes. Then, reading from the book, he is ticking off what doesn't apply. I was thinking, what kind of doctor is this that he needs a medical book? Never in my born days! I was starting to feel pretty uncomfortable, not from the itches but from a certain lack of medical knowledge on his part. I was thinking I could have gone online and done this myself. Then he says, "Yeah Gabe, looks like hives caused by contact with something you are allergic to."
What that something is, I have no freaking clue. Neither did he. He had me describe the vegetation I was massacring. Was it shiny-leaved, three-leaf, red-leaf, vine, stalk, what exactly? All of them, I said. Well, let's do this, says he. Take two to three Benadryl tablets and use the gel.
That's it? But how long will it take to use Benadryl to clear up? Uh, as long as it takes. WHAT kind of an answer is that? I ask, can we speed this up? In case it is poison ivy (which I be highly allergic to and have been given Prednisone for in the past) can we get me some steroids? Well, yes, we can give a low dose and a Claritin tablet during the day, the Benadryl gel as needed and two Benadryl tabs at night, I should be cleared up in a jiff. OK.
I left the office for the chemists, picked up all I needed and went home to drug and gel meself up. After an hour of one Prednisone tablet, I started to see a marked difference. The swellings weren't as red. They were now a lovely shade of pink, the swelling wasn't as pronounced and nothing itched. I waited an hour, then took the Claritin tablet. After an hour the pink is almost imperceptible, the golf ball swellings are almost gone, and again, no itch.
So here is the thing, I be suspicious this vine is me bump and itch attacker. No one who has seen it knows what it is. So I be putting it here so if anyone does recognise it, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IT IS! It grows in southern New Hampshire, usually in clumps, and like nightshade, it tendrils up plants and kills them. It doesn't have the small purple flowers with the yellow stamens; it has these light green bean-looking things that, when they open, are like silky white puffs. Does anyone know what this little shop of horrors plant is? (See two pictures below.)
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| Beans |
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| Mature leaves at five to six inches |
Post Script: I found out these are a type of poison ivy.
Gabe
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
