Poison Ivy
By zigzagbuddha
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
United States
June 19, 2008 9:36pm CST
I never got affected by poison ivy until just a few years ago. I was helping a guy get his new restaurant ready to open and he was concerned about the poison ivy that covered the entire wall at the rear entrance where the parking lot was.
I volunteered for the job since I seemed to be immune to it. Thing is it was a scorcher of a day and while I usually don't wear a bra, if I hadn't on this day I believe I would not have suffered like I ended up doing.
A mangled torn leaf from some of the poison ivy fell down my shirt and into my bra where it was pressed against my hot, sweaty, wide open pored skin all day in 100 degree heat.
Man that sh!t was off and running! I was basically bed-ridden for days, maybe a week or more! So now I'm a little nervous about it and am more inclined to catch a dose of it.
The other day I was clearing out around the garden shed where the honeysuckle has taken over, and among the vines were a few that were poison ivy. I had gloves on so I tried to just ignore it. But I didn't totally succeed. I kept feeling that itchy feeling, and sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night with my arm itching like hell. For 3 days now I have been 'not scratching'. Wow. What a job that has been. But it was to my advantage because it never went any further than just a couple of spots. Whew!
My mother once saw some lovely vines growing by the side of the road and dug them up to plant on the side of her house. It was also a hot summer day, and my mother was out digging and planting those vines for hours, repeatedly wiping the sweat from her brow and out of her eyes.
I'm sure you know what's coming... yes, it was poison ivy. (Just goes to show what happens when a bona fide city girl moves to the country!)
I didn't know this story yet when she came to my house for one of my kids bday parties. I saw her get out of her car when she arrived - she was dressed very festively in black Russian type billowing pants, black boots, blood red silk blouse... but when she came into the house I was horrified!!! There on the head of my mother was the face of the Elephant Man!!!!!!!
I think there ought to be a law against poison ivy. Maybe if we start a protest group it will be abolished. Or if we pray real hard maybe God will realize he made a mistake and kill it off. Anybody with me on this?
4 people like this
11 responses
@snowy22315 (208906)
• United States
20 Jun 08
I never had poison ivy but I know it can be miserable. I just had some bug bites and they were extremely itchy and miserable. My mothers aunt was picking strawberries or somethin one time out in the field and she went somewhere outside to go to the bathroom and somehow got poison ivy all over her rear end. Now that would be awful!
2 people like this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
I wholeheartedly agree! It would even be worse than the time I got a tick in my butt from doing the same thing! I don't even remember who got it out for me. Hehehe.
1 person likes this
@WhatsHerName (2716)
• United States
20 Jun 08
Ha,ha I spent a few hours digging up a plant I thought was clematis once. I lined my walkway into my house with it, and I'm a country girl. A few hours later I looked it up online and I'm quite sure it was poison ivy so I went out and ripped it all out and burnt it. I think I also read that you can catch it from the air, that might explain why you got the rash even though you had gloves on. I used to think you had to be allergic to it and thought I wasn't because I'm always in weeds and woods and never broke out. I didn't break out the day I transplanted it either, I don't get it.
1 person likes this
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
20 Jun 08
OH gosh that was awful! My son gets pretty bad, but not like that.... OHmy gosh I could have done without that one LMAO.
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
Hahahaha... yep, that's pretty much what my mothers face looked like when she came to my son's birthday party!! Although the 'blisters' weren't quite that bad to be totally honest. Man, that guys arm was frightening!
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
20 Jun 08
rotfmao Oh my gosh zigZag, I was unsure If i could laugh at you or cry with you for your pain! My middle son is highly allergic to poison ivy sumac and a variety of green insanity causing plant forms. if he even so much as steps into the presence of a plant he will blister until he looks alien like. he always has to take a series of steroid treatments to recover. If you can wash with soap and water in a cool bath after coming into contact with the plant it will reduce the reaction. it is the oils from the plants that cause the itching and blistering....
LMAO you poor thing, be careful out there! The garden is a horror story at times.
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
"Green insanity causing plant forms"!! HAHAHAHA!
If I had been 'on my toes' I would have taken a cool shower and washed my whole body with soap after I finished my job the other day. I had totally forgotten that I had read that! Fortunately it has gone away without making me too insane!
Some of the alien life forms I dig up when working in the garden look like the stars of a horror film!
@Angelwhispers (8978)
• United States
20 Jun 08
Modestah chiggers eat me alive... I have to wear clothing that covers my skin tuck pants into socks and wear insecticides...
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
I think I hate ticks more than any thing on the face of this earth! I haven't had much experience with chiggers.
Boy Angelwhispers, that'd be rough having to smother yourself in insecticides! I usually where light colored pants tucked into my socks if I'm going into an area that I know the ticks like.
One day, before I had learned to 'armorize' myself, I had decided to do my yoga up in a clearing on top of the mountain. I was wearing biker shorts and a little halter top. Spread my mat out and was laying all over it with my arms and hair out in the grass. I got home and later that day I found ticks in my hair!! Fortunately it was before any of them had a chance to 'dig in'! Last time I ever did my yoga in the mountain! In fact I stopped walking up to that spot too, which I had to follow deer trails to get to.
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
21 Jun 08
I know they do. It gets on my nerves too. I'm glad I'm not a Buddhist. If I HAD to belong to some religion my first choice would be Wicca, second would be Buddhist, and I would prefer combining the two. But I prefer being a free spirit and believing whatever I want to believe.
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
21 Jun 08
Probably the reason your brothers got it all the time was because they were taught to look for it. You will always find what ever you're looking for.
And if you want to believe that God prefers you humble, well, what can I say... go for it. Personally I don't find any value whatsoever in being humble, and it has not been my experience that God finds any value in it either.
1 person likes this
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
20 Jun 08
I'll not question Her judgment on this any more than on bumble bees or other strange parts of nature, but you have my sympathy. As a child I practically rolled in the poison ivy and was quite confident well into adulthood that I was immune to its effects, but then I encountered for the first time some poison oak, and oh, my! Not sure if the fact was my immunity wore off after so many years of city living, or if there is that much of a difference between the two. Well, I guess that will teach you to wear that article of clothing ever again, won't it?
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
And that's exactly how I feel about everything in existence, even the ridiculous sh!t some people do... like cutting down trees to make toilet paper and huge gigantic boxes, hoping to make you feel like your getting something for the outrageous amount of money that you have had to pay for some teeny tiny item! I don't get into anti-this and anti-that, but I do look for TP made from recycled paper, and buy stuff with the least amount of packaging.
Hehehe, I just wore one the other day as a matter of fact! I wanted to pretend I had some boobs to hold up.
@Perspectives (7131)
• Canada
29 Jul 08
Ew...weee....poison ivy is awful...and yes, sign me up...I would love to abolish it!
I have had poison ivy...and poison oak a couple of times in my life and can fully empathize with what you and your mother went through went you had it.
Hopefully you have had your last bout...since being infected with it I am always really cautious when walking in the woods. Long pants, tucked inside my hiking boots and socks. If any of the wretched plant is spotted...it is given a really wide birth.
Not a fun time...so when the petition to abolish poison ivy from the planet is read to sign...count me in!
Raia
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
29 Jul 08
Well, I have had 2 encounters with poison ivy since I started this discussion. The flower bed I am cleaning up for the postmistress (because she keeps me supplied with water from the fresh mountain spring on her property) was thick with it. Then my mother came to me the other day and said she was pulling up some weeds with little red berries on it to give to the chickens and now she was itching all over. She wondered if it was some kind of a poisonous plant like poison ivy and took me out to see some of it. The entire area where she had been pulling up those plants -which were not poisonous - was FULL of poison ivy! I refuse to go through my life afraid of a plant!!! I have been ripping it out by the roots with my bare hands!
1 person likes this
@Perspectives (7131)
• Canada
2 Aug 08
Thankfully we have never had any in our yard...but friends of ours had a small acreage and encountered a situation similar to your Mom. The fact that you pull it out with your bare hands is...um...different. Not a route that I would take...I prefer to do my best to keep some distance between is..and me. I am not afraid of it either...just watchful.
My 'itching' experiences with it were not fun either...hope you and your mother are done with that part of it.
Raia
@koharukusumi (1539)
• Malaysia
20 Jun 08
LOL. I dont know how to respond to this because it's funny. I guess we all should just learn to get along.
1 person likes this
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Jun 08
Hehehe, makes sense, considering that we all share the same very small, very delicately balanced planet, on the outskirts of an immense galaxy situated somewhere in an infinite universe!
@koharukusumi (1539)
• Malaysia
20 Jun 08
LOL. I dont know how to respond to this because it's funny. I guess we all should just learn to get along.
@CJscott (4187)
• Portage La Prairie, Manitoba
19 Aug 09
Calamine lotion I am told, I always wear pants and tuck my cuffs into my socks and long sleeves when I am out in the woods, in case of ticks, so I have never really suffered from poison ivy myself. Don't think I want to, sounds like chicken pox, and I really didn't like that.
@zigzagbuddha (4601)
• United States
20 Aug 09
There is a plant called 'Touch-me-not' (I don't remember the 'official' name right off hand) that usually grows around poison ivy, the juice of which is supposed to be an antidote for it.
I have made friends with snakes and spiders but ticks just make me cringe! One day I was doing yoga up at the top of one of these mountains feeling all connected with nature and sh!t, then when I got home I was picking ticks out of my hair for hours... I am soooo glad I got them before they dug in! Man ticks give me the creeps!
