It took more than an ocean ...

Warning: This post contains photos that may not be suitable for anyone with a weak stomach.

I guess I never blogged about it, but two or three months ago Matt got a really nasty case of poison ivy/oak/sumac/something on his hands. We think he picked it up from a stick he carried around while walking through some woods. It was a big mess that he eventually dealt with using a DIY technique (that I ardently opposed) involving safety pins and rubbing alcohol. It was a huge pain, and disgusting, and annoying. He was afraid to touch Bri for, like, a month after her birth because he didn't want it to spread to her.

After about three weeks it finally started to go away. Thanks to his bathroom-sink surgeries or because it ran its natural course, we don't know, but it was gone.

Fast-forward to last Friday. Matt, Jacob and Stephen laid sod in the yard of a house we're building. Matt unknowingly wore work gloves he'd worn last time he had this affliction. The oil from poison ivy can last for up to a year. By the end of the day, Matt's hands looked like this:




It was actually worse than last time. I was really worried that Claire was going to be born and he wouldn't be able to hold her. At my doctor's appointment on Monday it came up (it ALWAYS comes up because he has to explain why he can't shake people's hands) and the doctor spent literally more time talking to him about that than she did talking to us about Claire. She told him he needed steroids.

So yesterday he went to another doctor, who told him it was the worst case of poison ivy he'd ever seen, prescribed prednisone plus some kind of cream, and promised it would look much better in 48 hours. Matt says it seems to be working, and this solution was even free, minus a $20 copay, thanks to Blue Cross' policy on generic prescriptions. What a bargain! But can you really put a price on an extra set of hands when a newborn baby is about to arrive? I think not.

P.S. We threw away the gloves.