Ankle week

At the end of June, Ross had a funky rash on one leg. As we were bound for a week on the left coast, we got him in to the doc right away in case he had something horrible that would prevent him (or us) from having a good time on vacation. The doctor examined the leg with interest but came up blank on what it might be. We were told to watch it for a few days and bring him back in if it spread or just wouldn't go away. When I said we were getting on a plane the next day, we got a tube of antiviral cream and told to keep all the spots covered. Armed with a box of band-aids and the cream, we took off. I made Ross wear pants to fly, as I worried they'd keep him off the plane fearing contagion if they saw 23 band-aids all over his legs. By the time we got to the hotel that night, we were up to 34. Ack! We found a drug store and stocked up on large bandaids for mass coverage and gauze & tape for the night. Even though it didn't seem to make a difference at all, we creamed and covered with vigilance and waited for his legs to recover or fall off. Nothing happened for days...and then he scabbed breifly and then it was over. Weird.

Last weekend, I told Ross a few too many times not to scratch himself THERE in public and finally wrangled him into a bathroom to see what was really up. Bug bites, two, on his upper thigh - poor kid! I borrowed some anti-itch and no more was said.

Tonight, Chris called me upstairs while he was herding the kids through their showers and pointed at Ross' ankle, which was blistered in a funny line. Not bug bites. The evil rash! All over his legs! AGAIN! ugh. And then, Chris said something about poison ivy and I realized I don't know what a poison ivy rash looks like - I don't get one. So, I Googled "poison ivy rash" and there it was, Ross' rash, all over the web. Duh!