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I just have to hold out for 40 minutes… that’s less than an hour. I can do it. I CAN DOOOO EEEEEEEET

A week or so ago, I forgot to follow up with my discoveries on the topic of poison ivy. The most important thing I learned about poison ivy is that it’s not contageous. Yes, you heard me right, its not contageous. Well, not really anyway.

When you first come in contact with the plant, you get an oil on you called Urushiol Oil. The oil is absorbed into your skin and it is what causes the rash. That oil can take 6 hours to be completely absorbed into the skin. During those 6 hours, you can possibly pass the oils onto someone else, but then again, during those 6 hours, you hardly even know you have poison ivy (it usually takes 2-12 hours to manifest). Now be forewarned that while your skin will absorb the oil in about 6 hours, your clothes or any other non-skin items you may have had when you contacted the poison ivy, may still have the oiil on them. That oil can last for years! So if you find that you have contacted poison ivy, be sure to wash your clothes throroughly.

Washing yourself, however, can be tricky if the oil isn’t completely absorbed. The best thing to do, if you know you have been in contact, is to wash your skin with Tecnu. Be sure to follow all instructions carefully. Tecnu, when used properly, will actually remove the Urushiol safely and keep your rash to a minimum. It is best to use it before you even see signs of the rash. If you are able to beat the rash, you may not even get it. If the rash does appear and you are able to catch it early, you could have a very minimal breakout. Be very careful not to take a hot shower within 6 hours of exposure, while that oil is still on your skin. Any soap other than Tecnu (or the very expensive Zanfel) will not destroy the oil, and the warm water will only serve to open your pores so they can better accept the oil that your simply spreading around your body. Bad.

So anyway… now you’ve got poison ivy. It bubbles up into this ugly, juicy rash all over your body. Nice. That fluid that forms in the rash is NOT contageous, its chemically similar to the same fluid that forms in a blister and contains little to no Urushiol. So if you can’t stand it and have no self control, fear not the scratching. It won’t make it worse, just uglier. Anyway, I found the most effective remedy to subside the itching this past breakout. I used to have to put calomine lotion or some other anti-itch topical creme on my poison ivy once every 3-4 hours and that was just annoying. Especially since it goes on gloppy and then gets sticky, and slowly turns into flaky over those 4 hours. I thought it was just messy.

I read online about rinsing the infected areas with water so hot you could barely stand it for a couple minutes. I didn’t take much stock in the idea because it was just an off-handed comment on some random website I found, but later I found a similar reference from a doctor, suggesting the same treatment. I decided I was sick of lotions so I’d give it a shot. The only thing I had to lose was the itch. I used the sprayer in the kitchen sink and just completely rinsed my left arm with nearly scalding hot water. I have to warn you, it will start to itch first – a lot – but bear with it. Soon, the itching subsided and as my arm turned red from the heat, the itching went away completely. It was 10-12 hours before I even started to feel the slightest bit itchy. After two days, I was not only relieved at not having to use the calomine anymore, but the poison ivy was drying up and flaking away noticably faster than it ever did with the calomine lotion.

Not to mention, that with repeated hot water application, my lips had already healed (yes, I had it on my lips)! So now I have my new methods to rid myself of poison ivy…

1. wash thoroughly with Tecnu immediately after exposure or as soon as the rash appears.
2. dowse infected areas with nearly scalding water twice daily until gone (but wait at least 6 hours after exposure to start this regimen).
3. don’t get anywhere near poison ivy.

And to all you people who believe yourselves immune to Poison Ivy, there’s no such thing as immunity. Everyone can be affected by it, even if you’ve never had it before. Its random, chaotic, and your resistance to it can change dramatically throughout your life.

Its another long monday morning in the lab, but today I don’t feel like I have the endurance to make finish the race. For some reason this morning is just really kicking my ass like the cancer.

I didn’t do a lot this weekend, and the free time I was supposed to have somehow slipped through my fingers. One of those hours was stolen by that dastardly Daylight Savings Time. Damn you DST, you tease me with an extra hour in the fall, only to take it away in the spring again. So anyway, I was supposed to sit down and play some Hardcore WoW but Heather and I decided that we’d go to Sam’s Club with Steve and Jenn on Saturday… which of course led right into the game Saturday night. Sadly, it wasn’t much of a game. I blame no one for that fact, its just that I really wanted to play some good old fashioned D&D and more just sat around waiting for it to kick off. So my Saturday wasn’t a total bust, but it was surely less than perfect. We did, however, score a Sam’s Club membership ourselves, while we were there. It’s only $35/year and for the money we can save on dog food alone, it’s probably worth it. Also, we bought Splenda enough to last us 25 weeks worth of coffee.

Sunday I was so torn over the loss of Saturday and the loss of an hour while I slept, I didn’t know what to do. I still wanted to kill the day with WoW, but at teh same time, our yard looks like crap and I really need to mow. After watching Fat Albert (the movie, which I thoroughly enjoyed, thank you very much) I decided to be a total bum and just log in and game, but just as I logged in, pretty much everyone logged out. I was left to run around on my own. I made the best of it and picked up another level. I did rake and sweep the patio and grilled up some Salmon that Heather marinated overnight though. It wasn’t as good as it could be. The marinade she mixed up didn’t compliment the fish very well. It would be better suited for pork. We still half of the fish left, unmarinated, so we’ll try something else next time.

I got really grumpy at one point because as much as I play World of Warcraft, I’m being passed up by one person in particular who has been a good adventuring companion. It shouldn’t have annoyed me nearly as much as it did, it was pretty stupid. Its just that he started playing weeks after I did and has now caught up and passed me in level. I needed to just calm down and remind myself that doing things like going to the movies, having friends over, playing real RPGs, and spending time with my wife were more rewarding than tuning the world out and playing some game. If he’s willing ot sacrifice everything outside to that little online game, then he can have the level.

If I ever get out of this lab, I’m so catching up with him.

damn, I missed it.

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I’ve been really absent on LiveJournal lately and for those 2 of you that actually read my journal, I’m sorry. Aside from World of Warcraft being pretty all consuming, and my attention span for anything else being pretty much Nil. I had spring break the week before last and this past week I’ve been completely distracted by Poison Ivy. So lets do a bit of catching up.

As I said, I had spring break two weeks ago. I did very little and I loved it. I got my new camera Tuesday of spring break thanks to a really good man out at CDW-G. Justin, wherever you are, thank you. I got a great deal on a Canon RebelXT which is their brand new, top of the line, 8.0 MP Pro-sumer digital camera. It is a wonderful device and I fell in love with the box before I even opened it. I’ve taken a number of pictures and need to post some here for viewing. I bought Heather this fairly nice photo printer for christmas and I have to say, even under careful scrutiny, I can’t tell that the photos are digital. Not until I pulled out magnifying glass and a flashlight could I see the pixel information start to break down. That’s pretty good in my book.

So I took a bunch of goofy, pointless photos over Spring Break, photos that would be best served taken with my camera phone, but you know, I had the power to do better and I wanted to play with it. I’m still taking my photos on the full auto mode. I’ve never had a camera that was anything but full manual (Pentax K-1000) so I don’t know how to use all these features yet like Aperture Priority and wierd stuff like that. In fact, I’d almost prefer to just set the ISO, Shutter Speed and F-Stop by hand. Though, I have to admit, with my eyesight deteriorating, and the fact that I no longer wear contacts, I really love the auto focus. I’ve noticed that my later photos with the Pentax were often quite soft focus. I determined that came from my looking through the top of my glasses where the prescription wasn’t quite right. What I need is a prescription eyepiece. I hear they make them, but I bet they’re hella-expensive.

So anyway, that’s my new camera. I’m so glad I canceled my order from Amazon and went with CDW-G instead. I wouldn’t even have it yet, if I hadn’t.

Next up, GeoCaching and Poison Ivy.

…and I’m too lazy to go through all my friend’s entries, so if something amazing happened over the past week, post a reply here. kthnx.

I”ll be posting the small, nearly insignifcant things that happened over spring break here probably later today or tomorrow for your perusal.

Netflix has a friends feature and I’m lonely. Anyone of my friends on here also on Netflix and want to be my friend there as well? Drop me a reply and we’ll set it up.

Tonight
7:45 Play Time
Young Einstein or Popeye – To be determined by the attendees.

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