Wednesday, September 14, 2011

i blame it on the birds

i feed the birds in my garden. i give them water and even give them a cute house to nest in. and how do they repay me? they drop little seeds of poison ivy in my garden beds that grow into a mystery plant. this mystery plant then makes its way into my bare hands and now i have a horrible case of poison ivy.

in my misery, i have found a little humor. like the morning i was so itchy. i covered myself in calamine lotion and then walked my sweet son to school. i shot this picture as a reminder.

i found humor in my misery on monday. when i finally realized the rash on my body was not from fire ant bites and i decided to drive myself to urgent care. i sat in the waiting room with strangers probably trying to figure out why i was there. i was so itchy, and the only thing i could think of to help my discomfort was to do lamaze breathing. who would have thought that class i took while pregnant with my first child, would help me again, so many years later.

i found humor in my misery when the doctor walked into the room, took one look at me and said, "a classic case of poison ivy." "are you sure?" i replied. i challenged her diagnoses like i had been to medical school myself. she did not budge and ordered a steroid shot and 10 days of steroid pills.

i found humor in my misery when a male (male!) nurse walked into the room, a needle in one hand, and gloves in the other. he said, "i will give this injection in your buttock." i looked at him and said, "my rear end?" "yep," he replied. "so, do i need to completely drop my pants or just pull the side down?" i asked. "just the side will do." he came at me with the needle and out of my mouth came, "well this is awkward!" he squeezed my tush, ready to inject and then paused. "how do you do with needles?" i wanted to say, "sir, you are squeezing my tush, my pants are down and now you decide to hold a conversation about being afraid of needles?" instead i said, "i don't care what you do down there, just make this poison ivy itch go away." and bam, he injected, stuck on a bandage and left the room.

so this misery i am going through is terrible. but even in my misery, i somehow find humor. so excuse me, while i go bathe in oatmeal soap and drench my body in calamine lotion. 

1 comment:

Livin’ The Yeh Life’s said...

You poor thing! I'm so sorry! Loved your story, though! :)