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MY TERRIBLE, AWFUL, NO-GOOD SUMMER The perils of forgetfulness in love and undergrowth

by Mary Carey

(For larger view of Cynthia Fisher illustration, click in right navigation.) SNOW-COVERED GROUND. BLANKET OF FORGETFULNESS. My travails of last summer pale in relation to the awful national events that occurred last September. But in the context of my life, it was a season of pain, culminating in the wholly unanticipated breakup of a romantic relationship I’d been drawn into a full 10 years after giving up on the idea of romance. It started with a bad case of poison ivy. And while it seems best to let the soft snow blur the memory of love lost, it would be pure folly to forget about poison ivy, which even now maliciously awaits the spring. Not that it’s really safe even now. One of the many misconceptions about the poisonous but often pretty weed, which flourishes in the vicinity of the Warren McGuirk football stadium, where I likely encountered it, is that it only wreaks its havoc in mild weather. But contact with the oil in the lingering leaves, stems, or roots of poison ivy can lay you low in winter as well. I LEARNED THIS AND MUCH more on one of quite a few Web sites devoted to poison ivy, a corner of the Internet I discovered during an August spent talking of little else with everyone I met. I am somewhat proud to say that everyone who saw my swollen, blistered, and oozing legs said it was the worst case they had ever seen. Facts: Poison ivy, although distinguishable by its three-leafed configuration (the only thing I really knew about it a year ago), has many guises. Creeping, climbing, as a bush, on the ground – you name it. About 85 percent of people are susceptible to poison ivy – many more than think they are, if my conversations are any indication. I asked Jon Sachs, author of the mother of all poison ivy Web sites, www.poison-ivy.org (where you can win a handsome poison ivy poster, if you pass the tricky poison ivy quiz), to name his favorite ivy fact. His answer: It’s the number one reason people visit the dermatologist. But the most chilling fact is one I learned from UMass microbiologist Eric Martz. His Web site on poison ivy, created in 1997 though no longer regularly maintained, has the distinction of being the first one on the subject. What interested Martz in ivy was the fact that it is not the toxic oil, called urushiol, that causes the biggest problem. It’s the response of our immune system that causes all the pain. As with tuberculosis, the damage inflicted by the immune system is way out of proportion to the damage caused by the pathogen itself. I ASKED MARTZ IF I could perhaps take a bit of comfort, after a month of hell, in believing that if I ran into the dreaded ivy again the rash would be milder. Quite the opposite, he said: “In fact, if anything, it would be worse.” The immune system works like a camera, explained Martz, developing a memory of a pathogen that affronts it. The first time you contact the pathogen your body may not recognize the affront. But it’s unlikely to forget on subsequent contact. The trouble is, I did. Truth be told, I’d had poison ivy before and had foolishly forgotten to be on the lookout. Not only was I not on the lookout for the three-leafed peril, once I felt its characteristic sting I neglected to wash off the invisible urushiol immediately, which might have saved me. It would be several days before I realized what a mistake I had made. Martz told me the reason it takes a few days for the rash to fully kick in is that the immune system takes some time to gather white blood cells and deploy its massive defense. “That’s why it’s so insidious,” he said. Even as the immune system painstakingly prepares its attack, we fecklessly forget. Never again, I say.

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Terrible, awful

TERRIBLE: larger image