As a child growing up in northwest Wisconsin I played in fields that contained poison ivy. I am sure my mother told me the memory trick, “leaves of three, let them be” to help identify what was poison ivy, but I do not remember specifically looking out for it, or getting a bad case of it.
When we bought our house in 1999, there was some yard work to do. Washouts had to be filled, weeds removed, and trees to be trimmed. Up one tree was a thick vine that looked dead to me. I put my gloves and hat on and hacked away at it with a hatchet. Dust and debris fell on me from above. A few days later my arms started to itch. Followed by red welts from my hands to my shoulder. The vine was poison ivy and it was definitely NOT dead! I tried to treat it with home remedies. One day my arms were so swollen that I had to go to the hospital. You know your case of poison ivy is bad when the doctor winces at the sight of it. Wearing my gloves had made it worse because the plant dust accumulated inside them. The doctor gave me a shot of prednisone, then some pills and salve to take home. For a week, both arms oozed. It was so bad, that I taped paper towels around them during the day to prevent the ooze from soaking through my work shirts! From that point on, I was constantly looking out for ‘leaves of three’.
A few years ago I wanted to take photos of fireflies around my yard. There were many across the road from our house in the neighbor’s farm field. It was a warm evening, so I was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. I briefly stepped into the tall grass and started pointing my camera around, looking for fireflies. My glasses fell off and into the grass. I searched for them a short time and found them. I wasn’t getting any good shots of fireflies, so I aborted the project, went back in the house and took a shower. A few days later I noticed poison ivy on my arms, then my waist, then neck, face, and legs. Obviously there was poison ivy in the farm field grass, but I was only standing in it a short while. While was it all over my body? Turns out when I took a shower, I spread it all over! I had it in places that should never have poison ivy! I went to the doctor and he gave me the usual medicine. I was able to take a couple of days off from work because my face looked awful.
As a kid, poison ivy did not affect me very much. As an adult, my immune system did not take kindly to it. I have had a number of breakouts since, but am very careful to avoid the plant and know to immediately wash exposed areas and put on ointment.
