Sarcastic Picnic: March 2007

Alarming!

Yeah, dumb title...I'm sorry.

I have a hard time getting to work on time in the morning (just ask Jeremy). I found the following cool alarm clocks that might help:

Once the alarm goes off, you have a certain amount of time to put the three wires together in the right order to hit the snooze button. I assume it's a different order each day. If you have to actually think and do some challenging task, you are more apt to stay awake instead of just hitting snooze over and over again. That, combined with the stress of defusing a bomb should do it!

The other cool clock I found was the bacon alarm clock:

From this page. Gets you out of bed with the aroma of sizzling bacon...reminds me of that Office episode where Michael burns his foot on his George Foreman grill he left turned on beside his bed (he was also trying to wake himself up with cooked bacon).

My favorite alarm clock, though? Had to be this morning, when Michelle sat Fox down on the bed beside me to wake me up. He spent 10 minutes grabbing various bits of my face and chewing on them. (Kind of like this.) I've never laughed so hard in my life.

I'm posting this at the end of a long day of report-writing, which I haven't finished yet. The Internet is a good distraction tool, as evidenced by this guy's drawing:

Man, I'm glad I wasn't on THAT bus.

I snapped this on the way back from Orlando Saturday...

How do I spell relief?

M E T H Y L P R E D N I S O L O N E

Otherwise known as Prednisone, a corticosteroid. Along with a shot in the butt and an antibiotic for the infection, the good doctor gave me Prednisone for my severe allergic reaction to the Poison Ivy.

(After some research, I do think it was Poison Ivy and not Poison Oak.)

After day 16 of my ordeal, I'm finally starting to get some relief. The infected, swollen elbow looks not-quite-normal but much better than it did. The itching is now limited to my arms and back, not ALL OVER EVERY INCH OF MY BODY like it has been.

I have actually slept through the night and can now wear short sleeves again without grossing out my co-workers.

I started the medication Saturday morning, and at first all I got was the side effects of the drugs (swollen joints, confusion, flushed complexion) without relief from the itching. After about four days, the side effects started to dwindle, and I have just now started feeling better.

So far, this little weed has cost me around $114...
Zanfel $70 (two 1 ounce tubes at $35 an ounce!)
Calagel $6
Dr. Visit co-pay $15
Prescriptions $17 (prednisone and antibiotic)
Loratadine tablets $6

Those little tubes of Zanfel are expensive, but worth it!

When I find a sufficient weed-killer, I will be going on a hunt to eradicate all Poison Ivy from my yard. It won't be pretty.

Welcome to the Itchy and Scratchy Show!

Warning: This is graphic. Do not read if you get all weird about gross things.

Almost two weeks ago, I rubbed my elbow on a little poison oak vine in my backyard. It was dark, and I was working as hard as I could on my fence. I just didn't notice it.

(The red arrow points to the offending vine.)

No big deal, you say...it gets itchy, you put some cream on it. If only that were so. I've only gotten into Poison Oak once before, and I had a pretty bad reaction to it. I had it all over my forearms for a couple of weeks. I was pretty miserable, but at least it didn't spread.

This recent outbreak, however, is much worse. My elbow looks like a burn victim's. It's blistered, swollen, and infected, too...so that's nice. Both of my arms are covered with rashes and little dots, and I just noticed this morning that it's spread to the backs of my hands and fingers.

My stomach is covered with the rash. It's just plain nasty looking. There's a few spots on my legs as well, but not as bad.

Apparently I'm having what doctors call a "systemic reaction", which means that the urushiol oil from the plant that causes the reaction has now gotten into my bloodstream, and I'm breaking out everywhere.

The $35 tube of Zanfel cream (which does provide a few hours of relief) is almost gone, so I've got to buy more tomorrow. I went to the doctor today, and they gave me a shot in the butt and two prescriptions for a steroid and some antibiotics for the infection. I took 7 pills tonight...hopefully this stuff will kick in soon and I can return to some normalcy.

OK, now for the gross part. I've linked a picture of my arm...do NOT click on this link if you are easily grossed out.

I mean it, it's nasty. You've been warned.
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OK, if you really want to see it, here it is.

Fencing, partying, and playing...

During a hurricane many moons ago, a few sections of our fence were knocked down. It seems that whoever built this fence used landscaping timbers for fence posts instead of pressure-treated wood! With all the clay around here holding moisture in the ground, it rotted out all of the posts at ground level.

We kept using the phrase "an angry toddler could knock down our fence". True, but I needed help to get it back up. Monday night (March 5th), we had a bunch of folks over to help me raise this fence. We had to excavate the rotted out sections left in the ground, dig new holes, drop in the posts and pour concrete to hold them.

In the process I managed to cut my cable (goodbye TV and Internet!) and get a nasty batch of poison oak on my arms and stomach. The cable was easy to fix, the poison oak rashes - not so much. It's been a week and a half, and I'm still itching like crazy. I finally broke down and let Michelle buy the $35 tube of Zanfel today which seems to work pretty well. We'll see.

After a few more hours working by myself that Friday night, I finally had all of the posts replaced and was ready to nail the fence sections back up.

The nighttime shots you are seeing are from that Friday evening.

The next day, we went to the Johnston boys birthday party where we ran into the Walworths and the Mitchells.

Fox seems to like crowds of people, and he really loved the swingset.

Michelle decided to dress the boy like his father. I keep telling her he's not a dress-up doll...she never listens.

Saturday afternoon we went to Coosh's for the Crawfish Bawl...JB's Zydeco Zoo was playing, and we wanted to boogie with Fox. (He LOVES music with a really strong groove, and JB has that in spades.)