I am Poisoned!

**STOP!!  Don't go any farther!!  Below you will find some pictures of blisters and a horrible rash on my hand.  If that will gross you out you should visit this link of kitties on youtube instead.

***

A few weekends ago I took my youngest to a fall festival (and blogged about it)
Two days later my hand started to itch.  I thought it was something from work, or maybe a spider bite.  This was what it looked like on Friday.  Almost a week after the festival:

The blisters started to form pretty quickly from there.  You can also see some swelling on the top of my hand now.  This is the next day (a week from the contact):

That's when I realized I might want to start doing something about this minor rash.  I had been really good about not scratching it.  In fact, as it developed, I didn't even touch my hand.  I started to apply hydrocortisone to my wound and kept it covered while at work.  The covering was mostly because it was becoming pretty hideous to look at:

By Thursday the blisters and swelling were at their worst.  The cream was now mixed with a Benadryl cream and it kept the itching sensation to a minimum.

Finally, by this past Wednesday the blisters were reduced and the swelling mostly all gone.  I'm not sure what this will look like in another week, but hopefully it will all fade away quickly.

I still am not completely sure what it was that I came into contact with.  Many have suggested Poison Sumac.  With all of the hiking and camping that I have done I have never had anything like this happen so I guess I just got lucky this time.  I was surprised by the two day lag of contact and rash but I believe it happened at the festival because my daughter got a rash (not as bad) under her arm where I would have picked her up.

I received a lot of advise from friends and co-workers on my rash.  I was told I should have treated it with Kerosene, straight bleach, or just peed on my hand.

I didn't try any of those this time.   But, maybe next time I'll look into these alternate treatments...