A little birdy whispered in my ear today [rather abruptly] that I'm supposed to be posting more. Apparently, my life shouldn't be withheld from my avid readers for more than about 12 hours at a time.
Therefore, I apologize, Readers. I should have been more considerate.
Now, I believe there were a number of topics I promised to share my thoughts about. Not really knowing if one has particular precedence over any of the others, I think I'll discuss the magical properties of the wonder drug I've been feeding into my system for the past week: PREDNIZONE.
Almost a month ago, I went along with the Odenton Ward to the holiest of all teenage Mormon girl gatherings [no, not EFY on the BYU campus]: Girls Camp. I felt that all my years of fun and shenanigans deserved some work in return in the form of unconditional love and endless patience for dirty dishes. I quickly learned that there was a lot more of the latter going on than the former, but it didn't frazzle me too much. As long as my little sunspots had a good week, that's all that matters, right?
Oh, how wrong I was. Thinking that just because I've been immune to poison ivy for the past 19 years of my life meant that I was basically set until my dying breath, I unwittingly accompanied the girls into the woods on multiple occasions in capris instead of the recommended parachute pants to collect firewood. You can imagine my horror when the "mosquito bites" on my legs a week later wouldn't go away.
By the time an entire seven days since my excursion into nature had occurred, I came to the dreadful realization that I had, in fact, received my first case of every camper's nightmare. The itching had spread from the hideous rash on my knees and shins to up my arms and around my left eye. I felt sort of bad for the customers I had to serve at Chipotle. Here I was, all itchy and spazzing, hovering over their food with a swollen eye that made me look like I'd try to show Chuck Norris a thing or two about good sportsmanship. Honestly.
To make things worse, the unquenchable itching was very soon accompanied by another alarming symptom: my legs had begun to swell. I seriously resembled the Elephant Man. Better yet, I looked like the Elephant Man if he'd gone on a pretzel and ocean water binge.
When we saw that the poison ivy had no intention of leaving my body, my mother got serious and sent me to the doctor. Having never actually taken myself to a doctor's appointment before, I was mightily surprised to find out that the first thing they wanted me to do was urinate into a cup.
Me: "Um, did my mom mention that my knee was swollen*, and that I might have soft tissue damage?"
Doctor I'm-Going-To-Treat-You-Like-A-Moron-Even-Though-I'm-Only-A-Lab-Assistant: "Just leave the sample in the bathroom and go back to the waiting room..."
*[I also went in to see the doctor about my left knee. I had fallen on it during a game of Commando about a month prior to my visit, and the swelling had yet to diminish. My left leg resembled the bloated carcass of an antelope left in the sweltering African sun.]
After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Slepian [sp!? What kind of name is that?!] finally condescended to see me. Before seeing him, I stepped on to a scale, which promptly lied to me about my current weight, before sending me to wait an additional 15 minutes alone in the examination room. When the man finally arrived, I rattled off my nightmarishly long list of symptoms, hoping one would impress him enough to operate on my central nervous system [you have no idea how bad the itching was]. However, even after the list had been completely rattled, the best he could give me was...Prednizone.
How on Earth is one cycle of pills going to take care of all my symptoms?, I thought in a voice reminiscent of those horrible home pill delivery service commercials. The good doctor claimed that this little baby could knock out the swelling, the rash, AND the itching in 8 days. Hardly willing to get my hopes up, I filled the prescription and hoped I wouldn't acquire the dreaded "Moon Face" [apparently, long term Prednizone users get these swollen faces...gulp].
Much to my delight, my legs are now completely the right circumference, the itching and rashiness is relatively gone, and the aftertaste isn't all too bad [if you don't mind the taste of Satan's armpit]. All in all, kudos to the good doctor and Prednizone, the I'm-10-times-stronger-than-any-Aspirin-they'll-ever-sell-you-legally wonder drug.
There you go, Readers. I hope my run in with big bad Mother Nature has taught you all the importance of keeping the chiclets indoors and on drugs.
--Gwen
