In response to the Memoir prompt – The Itch

I learned at a very early age to recognize the plant above, Poison Ivy. I’ve always had a hypersensitivity to the plant. Experience taught me quickly that being around this seemingly innocent looking plant would make me miserable with a rash and itch that could easily make me lose what little sanity I possessed. Grandmother and Mother alike would smack my hand if I even looked like I was about to scratch and would insist that if I touched the rash it would spread.

In the fall of 1972, my then fiance and I were taking a nice leisurely drive in the country near where we both grew up. The temperatures were mild so all of the windows in the Chevelle Malibu were down and the radio blared. We noticed a guy along the roadside and some pretty nasty looking smoke so we slowed down to see if there was any help needed.

As we slowed, we saw that the guy at the roadside was someone that we went to High School with. He was burning weeds between the fence and the gravel road. We sat and chatted for probably 15 minutes and happily drove off to enjoy the colors of the fall leaves that were beginning to turn.

The next morning my alarm went off telling me it was time to get up and get ready for work. I noticed then that my face felt funny. Slowly getting out of bed and stumbling into the bathroom, I turned the shower on so that the water could begin to warm up (it took a while in that old apartment!). One look in the mirror made me scream. My face was swollen and had a rash all over it. Dang, if I didn’t know better, I’d think I had poison ivy! How the hell would I get it on my face?

At the time, I worked for an Internist as his assistant and knew that he would be able to figure out what the problem was. By the time I got to work, the itching had started. This time it was actually more painful than itchy, though. Doc actually jumped when I walked in the door to the office. Apparently the swelling had gotten worse. He came closer and looked me over and said, “Young lady, I don’t EVEN want to know what you were doing to get poison ivy on your face!”

“Poinson Ivy? Doc, I wasn’t anywhere near poison ivy this weekend, honest! I thought it looked like it too but I wasn’t anywhere near the stuff and I certainly wouldn’t have buried my face in it!”

He scratched his head and looked me over again and then asked what I had done the day before. I related the story of the drive but left out the burning weeds part because I didn’t see any connection. “You had to have been around it somewhere, Bev. Now think. Did you stop anywhere and walk around?”

“Nope, Doc. Well we did stop and talk to a guy we went to school with. He was burning weeds at the side of the road.”

“Well, there must have been poison ivy in what he was burning. The oil must have been in the smoke and you are so sensitive to it that it got all over your face.”

He gave me some medicine and sent me home saying, “You stay home until the swelling is down. I can’t have you scaring the patients with that face.”

Just what a girl of 19 needs to hear…she has a face that would stop a Mack truck but not in a good way. Doc could have used some lessons in his bedside manner too.

© 2010, Bev Owens. All rights reserved.

When the shoulders of the other kids fell in disappointment over the report assignment, I was grinning from ear to ear and couldn't wait to get started. I've always loved doing research on topics and then writing about what I've found. My newest endeavors are blogging and writing fiction.

Bev Owens

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Tags: itch, memoir, poison ivy, rash

This entry was posted on September 7, 2010 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Memoirs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.