I spent 18 years living in rural Missouri as a kid and a teenager without ever encountering poison ivy, oak or sumac. 2010 has earned its place in my year of “firsts” as the first year I’ve ever contracted poison ivy.
I’ll admit that this mean little plant is one of the worst things about a state filled with plenty of other things that make me less than happy sometimes. I’ve spent 2009 and 2010 trying to shed light on the cool, beautiful, fascinating sides of Missouri.
Maybe it’s the violent rash that spread over my arms, ankles and legs…Maybe it’s the steroid shot in my arm or the prednisone pack…Maybe it’s that said violent rash bled through my blouse during a workshop yesterday afternoon…
but I’m kind ticked off at poison ivy right now.
Usually, I’m a huge fan of sharing photos of my Missouri antics, but I kinda thought you’d be okay without seeing my rash. My rash is enough to make me wrinkle my nose. I figured I’d spare you the cringe factor.
The Missouri Conservationist calls poison ivy “Missouri’s Most Irritating Plant”. Poison ivy is a real booger, growing in almost all conditions (shady, sunny, damp, dry) and making appearances throughout every Missouri county.
Photo Credit: Missouri River Institute, The University of South Dakota
The oil from the plant can apparently survive for years on other plants, so even if there’s no visible poison ivy in your yard, in your garden, or on the trail you’re hiking, that doesn’t mean its oil isn’t sitting there stealthily, attached to some other formerly harmless plant, waiting to attach itself to your unwitting skin.
And if you’re like me (and roughly 85% of the population), that oil will eat away at your skin, leaving an angry, blistery, unbelievably itchy trail.
My day yesterday ended with a trip to Urgent Care in Maryland Heights, Missouri, where I forked over $75.00 for a visit with a doctor who stuck me in the arm with steroids (the irony of paying to be stabbed never fails to amuse me). Another $50 (and a very sore arm) later, I left Walgreens at Dorsett and McKelvey toting nasal spray, prescription strength Allegra, and a prednisone pack, thankful for medical insurance and a job that pays for life’s unexpected necessities.
My first winter in New York, I got very sick with bronchitis, but had no medical insurance and very little money. Poison ivy is a bum deal, but I didn’t take it for granted that I could afford the medical care I needed to stop the spread of the rash.
Nor did I take it for granted that St. Louis has great frozen custard. There’s something deeply ingrained in my psyche that when I need a shot at a doctor’s office, I’ve earned an ice cream cone. So as I headed out of the city on my way back to my small Missouri hometown, I got a Reese’s Pieces concrete, and suddenly I was a lot less angry at poison ivy.
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Tec-nu
You can get it at the store over the counter and it WILL take care of your poison ivy, it removes the oils.
Wish I new before you made that trip…
My husband gets attacked all the time and this literally stops it dead in it’s tracks!
Hope it helps!
Every couple of years I make the rookie mistake of getting poison ivy, and spreading it directly to my eyes. I wake up and can’t open them.
Lisa, I’ll remember that if I get it again. By the time I went to Urgent Care this time, I probably needed more than just the soap. I was pretty miserable.
Zach, in the eyes would be awful. As an aside, does nonreturner ever do commissions?
Great posting about Poison Ivy. Good information. However, and I really don’t want to burst your bubble about having medical insurance, but if you had visited an urgent care without any kind of insurance, the cash payment (including both the visit and the shot, and getting the prednisone pack from the urgent care itself) would have amounted to less than $100.
Increasingly, having health insurance is fast becoming something that is useful only if (1) you’re pregnant or plan to be pregnant over the coming years (2) you have a major chronic illness with many complications, but you don’t qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, or (3) and here’s the rub, you have a major catastrophe, such as a car accident or a brain tumor.
Most healthy people will only identify with #3, and hence the solution being ‘catastrophic insurance only’, where one’s deductible is rather high, and you’ll visit a doctor every couple of years, paying far less than the monthly premium you’re now saving, but if that catastrophe does ever happen (and of course we all hope it won’t), you pay the first $3,000 or $5,000, and the insurance company picks up the rest of the tab.
Sorry for the long comment, but insurance needs to be better understood by the general public.