Are You Still Contagious?

Thursday morning, I noticed that G had a series of red scabby bumps on his left shin.

"What happened?" I exclaimed.

"I don't know," said G. "I think I got bit by some bugs when I was chasing Tater through the bushes at the park the other day."

"Weird," I shrugged. He put some hydrocortizone cream on his leg and went to work.

That night when we got home and he was changing into shorts and a T-shirt, he noticed that the bumps had spread to another spot. Now they were also showing up behind his right knee. This seemed odd to both of us so we dropped everything and when to Willamette Falls Immediate Care where we waited for two and a half hours for them to tell G to use bactine and hydrocortizone creams.

"Will that treat poison oak if that's what I have?" G asked.

"Uh, sure," the Doctor shrugged.

So we went home and he reapplied the hydrocortisone and added some Bactine to the mix and we went to bed in separate places, just in case whatever he has was contagious. The next morning we noticed that the existing spots looked just as irritated as before and that they had multiplied to new areas during the night. Puzzled, he reapplied the creams and we went to work.

During the day, we both did our own research and came to the same conclusion. G probably got into some poison oak or poison ivy. Confident in our self diagnosis, we went to REI for some relief. We collected one of every kind of poison oak/ivy soap and cream they had available. Then we went home and washed the dogs and all the laundry and G. He applied a poison oak/ivy specific gel and headed out to dinner. This morning some of his rash seems to be healing and other parts seem to be spreading so we're not sure what our next step should be. For now we'll try to keep him covered up and cool so it doesn't spread anymore. Whatever we do, I hope it keeps me from getting it!