Sucky suck suck

Quite PO'd

“Oh Jesus.” lengthy pause. “Let me take a picture of that.” That was the medical assistant’s response to seeing the worst part of my poison oak rash. Yup. More on that later. 

Before I get into the nitty gritty of suckiness let me just say that I got like 15-20 hugs today. There were lots of friendly smiles. The weather was lovely. My students pretty much all tried hard to get their jobs done. Physical therapy was fun. Welcome to the plank dome! Where all exercises revolve around core torture… All in all, splendid…

but…

The world is not always sweet smelling roses, beautiful sunrises and songbirds singing in the flourishing branches of a lovely oak. Nope. Sometimes it’s rotten garbage, gray dismal fog, and a cast of vultures staring at you from tree snags as you walk by. You know they are thinking, “Are you my lunch?”

Sure you can try to put some lovely words to these dismal things but really, they just suck.

As much as I generally try to find the good, I also think it’s important to acknowledge some sucky things. Emotions are similar really. It’s nice to try to improve someone’s mood if they’re feeling down. But telling them to just feel better is shallow and an attempt at denying the importance of what they’re feeling. Sometimes things suck and you’ll feel bad. It would be weird not to feel bad. Maybe you should feel bad for a while. Maybe feeling bad is actually the healthiest thing to do… for a while. 

Sucky suck #1

Facial hair - and in particular my facial hair - sucks. It grows fast and it’s about as coarse as the coarsest terrier hair you’ll find. I have scratched my own skin on my beard hair. I’ve broken several electric shavers with my beard hair. Razors don’t come close to providing any relief. They just leave sandpaper stubble. Does this make me more manly? Maybe, in some weird demented way. But really, it just means any sort of kiss is danger level 3 and will probably leave damage on the other participant. Poor me. And really, poor porcupines. 

Sucky suck #2

Stinging nettles’ stings. I don’t have much against the actual plant but the stings kind of suck. In Tumwater they would grow in lush patches under the trees in the woods near where I lived. Our favorite woods to play in were sometimes completely taken over. My friends and I would head to the woods, grab some sticks and go on the attack. We would trudge along the trails, chanting like in the old cartoon Hobbit, and swing our sticks like blades against the mighty goblin army. We might take down two or three nettles in each swing. “Victory will be ours!” We’d get some bumps along the way but it wasn’t ever too bad. We would clear the whole forest.

Once it was bad. I was riding my red bmx dirt bike down the road and straight into some woods in our neighborhood. The trail started with a little bump that you could not see over. I went zipping over this bump and sped down the other side… straight into a massive patch of stinging nettles. I let out a yell, dumped my bike and ran back up the little hill, covered in nettle sting welts and tiny sharp pains. The worst part? and the part that actually sucked? Having to go back down that little hill to retrieve my bike. My friends were highly amused.

Sucky suck #3

Next up… the yellow jacket sting. Oh, I don’t like them. Those stings linger. And chances are, if you got stung once, you probably got stung a bunch more. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with yellow jackets when they’re just minding their business and stealing large chunks of meat off your plate on a picnic. That’s fun. That’s fascinating. It’s the sting that sucks.

Once, in high school cross country on a training run at Millersylvania State Park we were cruising down this single track trail. The faster guys were in front of me and I was doing my best to keep up. They pushed on through this particularly bushy section. I followed. Note: The bad part about being behind others on a single track trail is that if they happen to disturb a nest, those little pesky yellow jackets wake up just in time to find the next person through. In this case it was me. and me. and me. and me over 35 times. I started sprinting at the first sting and 20 yards later came out to a small clearing - covered in yellow jackets. They were at my ankles and I fell over backward to my butt and leaned forward to wipe them away. Then they got my shoulders and back. I could see one little bugger stinging my lower leg viciously, pulling back and stinging again over and over. Oh, the anger I could sense from that one tiny critter! I really don’t know how many stings I had. I immediately went out into the lake to try to soothe the pain. It didn’t seem to help. I don’t remember what treatments I got at home but I know I was laid out on the couch in the living room for a day with a fever. I tried to count the welts and got up to over 50, but I don’t know if that number is real. I mostly just know it sucked.

But did that stop me from running single track trails? No way! I got stung later that same year 4-5 times at Priest Point Park. Oye. It still sucked. But then there was this long grace period. It may have been twenty years before I was stung again. It turns out organized trail runs in California through the redwoods are particularly treacherous. I don’t think I’ve been stung on solo runs, but almost every organized run through redwoods I’ve done has resulted in stings. 

My first attempt at a 50km trail run was at Big Basin. 5 miles into the race we were on some single track and we could hear these random screams up ahead. There would be silence for a few minutes, a moment of frantic yelling and then silence again. As we approached we found out why. There was a pack of people stopped on the trail. Yellow jacket nest ahead. No way around. One at a time people were bucking up their courage and just going for it. Some would make it through clean. Others would get nailed and yell bloody murder as they went through. I got nailed 5 times… 4 on the neck and head and one on the ankle. I ran really fast the next 5 miles due to the Adrenalin rush. Then I pooped out. Oh, the rest of that run was hard. I got back to the start/finish aide station at 42 km. While there I learned that there were reports of several yellow jacket nests on the remaining 8 km loop. I decided 42 km was enough for that day.

I’ve even been stung on single track in the redwoods in December. It’s just not fair! It sucks. 

Sucky suck #4

Very few plants around here stay green through the dryness of summer. Very few plants around have their leaves turn lovely shades of red and yellow in the fall. Oh, the greenness in the spring is robust. The red in the fall is cheery. It’s everywhere. It could be fabulous but it’s poison oak. I just read that 85 percent of people get rashes from poison oak. I’m one of those people.

Here are a picture of poison oak taken from Katie’s blog… I think these leaves are fresh and new.

and another one. Oh, it’s just so lovely.

And here’s a link to a few of her Poison Oak posts as well. Her blog is fantastic by the way. I need to remember to login occasionally and make sure it’s not got any issues. http://natureid.blogspot.com/search/label/poison-oak

About 17 years ago I was on a lunch run with PV and CT out at Ryan Ranch. There are trails and stuff there. We tried a new direction. I bushwhacked through some sticks and leafless bushes in an attempt to locate a trail. It was a fun lunch run. I like powering through bushes like a manly man. 

2-3 weeks later I started to get some nasty welts and itchiness and ooo. And then it just kept getting worse and worse and I had these giant red gashes down the back of both legs and it pussed and oozed and I couldn’t sleep at night and nothing helped. I had to go to the doctor and they gave me antibiotics for my oozie wounds and steroids to try to make the healing go faster. It still sucked for several days more. Sucky sucked.

So I don’t really bushwhack in California anymore. 

I still run. I think I’m pretty good at dancing around branches that stick out into the single track. I basically just try to not let anything touch me while I’m running. If something does touch my leg I look back quickly to see what plant it was. If it was poison oak I might just spray some water from my bottle on the spot then and there. Straight away! No Messing about. Still.. I usually have at least one spot of poison oak on my legs at any given time.

About 12 years ago I ran trails alone at Fort Ord. I got back to my car and opened the doors to let the hot air out. I’m standing there, sipping water, cooling down and this mid sized dog comes running down the trail, heads toward me and then just hops right into my car and into the back seat of my two door Honda. “I’m here. Ready! let’s go!!” I try all the kind words I can to get the dog to come out. No luck. I wait and look for an owner. No owner appears. Sigh. It’s a nice dog. Just stubborn. I reach in and grab the dog, Lola, was her name, and pull her from my vehicle and shut my door. We stand around waiting for a few more minutes. No owner. I check the tag. There’s a phone number. I call it. It’s a vet or something but they know the dog. The owner is on vacation. The vet calls around. They find out who the dog walker is and contact them. The walker had lost the dog in Fort Ord hours earlier. They come to pick up the dog. Everything is great. 

I got home and 2-3 weeks later. RASH all down my arms. Both arms. Nasty nasty nasty. Oh Lola… I will forever loathe thee and your rampant gallivanting through poison oak before leaping into the back of my car. 

I’m really careful about leaving my car door open now. 

I don’t pet dogs if I think they’ve been in the woods.

I’ve been running more trails again lately. It’s fun. It’s great. I’ve been on a few in a variety of places. Some have poison oak and I thought I had avoided it until last Tuesday when a small itchy bump appeared on my right calf. Two dark spots and bumps of itchiness. Hmmm. Looks like I got jabbed by a stick. Oh well. I rub some Tecnu on it in the shower. I spray it with some Tecnu stuff. It doesn’t feel all that bad. By Sunday a good 6” of my calf is covered in rash. I run with KS near Santa Cruz. No problem. Feeling good. Just not sleeping very well. Showering twice a day. Trying different home remedies. Nothing is really working but by Sunday afternoon I have convinced myself that it’s not getting worse. By golly, it must be getting better! Nope.

Monday I have to wear pants all day for school. Oh… that sucked. My entire calf went rash angry mad oozing nasty grossness. Yup. Tuesday (today) I wake up and it’s on my other leg. There are rash marks on my arms and my side and friggin’ heck… what in the world happened. Did I sleepwalk and roll around in a patch of poison oak? It’s just nasty. I call the doctor. I get to go in same day. Yeah! The nurse/technician giggles and then says “oh, I’m sorry” when I tell her I have poison oak. And you know what? That’s entirely the correct response. I run trails. Single track. In shorts. In short sleeves. At some point I am doomed and I know it. Self inflicted for sure. Anyway. Then the medical assistant comes in and when I take off the dressing that is covering the nastiest bit he says, “Oh Jesus.” followed by a lengthy pause and, “Let me take a picture of that.” Yup, it sucks and it’s super gross. But apparently it provides some amusement to medical folks.

Then I got a shot in the butt and a prescription for steroids and I have some fancy anti-bacterial cream to try to make sure I don’t get an infection. Yup. Poison oak rashes suck. Poison oak? Lovely to look at in the wild. Just stay away as best you can. 

Sucky suck #5

Dementia and Alzheimers. They just suck. My mom died in the spring, but I couldn’t even tell you the last time she knew who I was. Surely it was years. She still laughed at my jokes - which eased the mental pain a little. But man, memory issues just suck. 

To not be there. To have others caring for you that are there that remember everything you do to them and then have to pretend it didn’t happen because they know that when you said those mean things you were in a different place, a different state of mind and you have no recollection of what it was.  Sucks.

Sucky suck #6

Having to be the strong one when the other is on Hospice. That sucks. A decision has been made that the end is coming. You know it. They know it. But you still have to go through the final steps and try to laugh and enjoy each moment and care for them and love them and let them know it’s okay. You can cook for them, shop for them, drive them where they need to go, hold their dry puffy hands and watch movies, but you know where it’s going and it hurts and it sucks and all you can do is just be there.

And then they are gone and yet they aren’t really gone because you still have to deal with all the, all the stuff that no one should have to deal with at that moment. You just want hugs. Not bureaucracy and loopholes and bills. Super sucks.

Other sucky sucks? Yup. 

Mental illness? Bad luck? Ageism? Sexism? Racism? Stupidism? A series of misfortunes that no one should have to go through? Ever. Living in a capitalist society when all you really want to do is help people that need help. 

So… don’t be afraid to acknowledge the sucky suck sucks. They’re there. Probably different for everyone. Ignoring them or pretending that they don’t exist doesn’t actually work.