HEALTH HELL

When All My Head Holes Swelled Shut … Almost

Poison oak and I don’t get along

I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea, but I did.

Perhaps being an 18-year-old adventurous idiot dude had something to do with it.

Perhaps not.

My nonexistent experience with just how bad a poison oak rash could be may have had something to do with it as well.

Regardless, I hiked two times in three days in a local poison-oak-choked foothill area near my then-home in Southern California.

On hike number two I was already starting to break out from the effects of my poison oak exposure during hike number one.

Ah yes, the idiocy and unstoppability, and palpable invulnerability, of being a young strong man.

Did I mention that I stopped to pee in the woods during both hikes?

And, contrary to popular belief, the rash of poison oak is spread by the tenacious oil from the plants which coats every surface it brushes against, like one’s hands.

The cleverest among you may see where this is going already. But even if you’re already a step ahead of most, stay strapped in for the ride.

Here’s where it gets good, day #2 after hike #2 and day #4 after hike #1.

I was covered, head-to-incredibly-itchy-fucking-toe with poison oak rash, some of which had already started to swell and weep.

My face had lost all normal contours but had not yet taken on its impending warty-pumpkin-like appearance.

Dick, balls, crotch, and taint were red, angry and itchy. (I did mention that I stopped to pee during my hikes didn’t I?)

So was my tender little peri-anal region (Does an 18-year-old male idiot shit in the woods? Why yes he fucking does. Yes he does.). I don’t think I used poison oak leaves to wipe my ass, but I may as well have.

I was in 10-out-of-10 misery 24/7.

Then it got worse.

Days #5 through — what felt like —day #infinity of my affliction, swelling began. If only I had time-lapse photos of my face.

Let’s just say it’s truly astonishing the volume of fluid the face, scalp and neck can take on. The face in particular, is pretty distensible, and when faced with an extreme irritant that causes extreme swelling, it swells, extremely.

So, about a week into my double-whammy nature misadventure all my head holes were nearly swollen shut.

Check your own, presumably normal, head right now.

Are you aware of it’s weight?

Probably not, unless you’re some kind of pencil-necked geek or you’re supine and someone fun is sitting on your face while you’re trying to breathe. If so, lucky you.

If not, I’ll bet you’re just going about your daily duties, blissfully unaware of the weight of your head.

Joke break: Me: Wanna lose 20 pounds of ugly fat? You: Yup Me again: Well then, cut off your head.

At this point, about a week in, my head was swollen to about one-and-a-half-times its normal size. I was aware of its weight. I didn’t quite hear sloshing when I nodded, but close.

My hair looked shorter due to scalp swelling.

My eyes were so slitty I had to tip my head back to see in front of me.

My ear holes wouldn’t admit a fruit fly.

My bulbous nose had two paper cuts for nostrils.

If a puffer fish had wart-infested lips, covering 100% of his already puffy lips, that was me. I looked like I was a nano-second away from whistling, and not a happy tune.

I’d been toughing it out at home with lotions, potions, anti-itch meds and soothing baths but — now that I could barely see and was a sight to be seen — it was time to drive to see the doctor.

Thankfully, I had access to health care, due to my student status at a local college.

I headed down the freeway in my unsafe-at-any-speed whale of a Pontiac Bonneville, to visit the student health center.

As I drove, barely sighted, to school, I was aware that people in adjacent cars were checking me out. Most moved on quickly after getting their fill of my distorted disaster of a face.

One woman though, couldn’t get enough. She stared and stared, like someone watching a slo-mo train wreck. When I’d had enough of her polite curiosity I turned my head toward her and screwed up my already screwed up features for her viewing pleasure.

She reacted in stunned horror as though she was seeing the devil himself and it was dancing the hora on her dashboard. She hit the gas and vanished into the distance.

I continued peacefully on to school.

Ignoring the shocked student stares as I made my way from the parking lot to the student health center I entered and shocked all personnel working and all patients waiting.

Even the doctor was stunned.

“I’m thinking you need to be hospitalized” he offered, somewhat shakily.

“I’m itchy and miserable but breathing “I responded. “I think I can keep up with it.”

Grunting, the good doc hit me with a whopping dose of injected steroids (in retrospect probably not enough, but who knows) and some adrenaline (based on what I now know that was definitely a bullshit move but I’ll give the guy his desire to do a good deed despite his fright).

He also questioned why my nether regions were awash in rash. I was pretty sure he wanted to know if I’d whacked off in the woods but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a direct answer. I just told him I’d peed and left him to wonder if I could be trusted to tell the truth. He wisely decided not to examine my butthole.

I left to terrorize more fellow students on the way back to my car.

About two weeks later, after itching non-stop, changing innumerable dressings, taking far too many baths in some kind of oatmeal-like powder and proudly admiring my massively swollen schwanzstucker on a regular basis, I shed most of my skin and healed up.

I’m just about as ugly now as I was before the incident, no worse, no better, no permanent damage.

I’ve been way more careful about where I hike ever since.