The bad news is that I have a rash from poison ivy.
This is the fourteenth time
I have had a poison ivy rash in my life.
I even have permanent scars on my right shin
after a particularly bad case of it when I was a young man.
The itch is maddening.
I can’t scratch it, because that would only increase
the intensity of the itch tenfold.
Better not to scratch it at all.
But I can’t help it when I’m sleeping.
In my sleep, I scratch the itch and
I wake up half out of my mind.
It started just before I got to the Sault.
I thought it was just an itch from bug bites.
But, after scratching myself awake,
I took a closer look with my head lamp.
I could see the familiar yellowish puss
seeping from the rash.
I have it on my stomach,
lower back, right knee,
inside of a thigh, left tricep,
and the list is slowly growing.
I don’t know how much worse it will get.
I might still have the plant oil on my clothes,
although I did my laundry in the Sault.
The itch usually lasts for three weeks.
Three bloody maddening weeks!
The good news is that a friend
gave me a topical cream for bug bites that,
by chance, also provides some temporary relief
for the poison ivy rash.
I’ll stop at the very next pharmacy anyway.
The best thing I can do is to just keep walking.
It takes my mind off of the itch.
It’s better than just sitting around suffering.
The timing is unfortunate, because it’s unlikely
I would have come in contact with poison ivy
north of Thunder Bay.
That is boreal forest.
Poison ivy tends to be found
in deciduous forests.
Darn.
