Oatmeal and Kitten Bath

When I do something the first time, I do it all the way.

I got my first case of poison-whatever-rash. I've never gotten poison ivy, poison oak, or sumac. I chalked it up to some amazingly blessed genetic body chemistry that prevented by from getting poison whatever or even getting bit by mosquito's. Well, apparently, along with my metabolism shutting down, so has this natural bug repellent and poison blocker.

I spent last weekend weeding and mulching my garden. Here in the south there is this lovely vine called poison sumac. It grows on everything and if it could it would like a foothold in my nice garden. I've pulled piles of it out with my bare hands for years and I've never once gotten a rash. Not once.

Apparently, having kittens created the perfect storm environment. Kittens can't retract claws and think its perfectly acceptable to scale ones bar legs. So, all my little kitten scratches provided an 'in' to the poison sumac oils.

Since I have never broken out before, I thought the little red splotches on the scratches were run-of-the-mill infections from getting cat poop in the scratch wounds (kittens always manage to walk right into their poop in the litter box). So I put neosporin on my scratches. Who would have known that neosporin makes poison sumac worse. According to my doctor, some people can have allergic reactions to neosporin - which I did on top of the poison sumac. I tried over the counter cortisone and went through several tubes and it got worse and worse.

So, I was prescribed prednisone and given a list of all the side effects to include it would make me hyper. O.k. bring it on - - maybe I can ween myself off coca-cola. I was also told to take Benedryl at night so I could sleep.

Lets just say that knocks me out and 20 oz of coke and the prednizone can't wake me up. (I'm feeling a bit jipped) In fact, I'm surprised I wasn't suffocated in my sleep by kittens who all want to sleep on my face and neck.

I'm also surprised I don't have kitten hickeys as they all seem to want to suck on some part of my face - nose, eyelash, lip. I woke up and couldn't move my head because four kittens had made themselves quite comfortable in my hair, spread across the memory foam pillow. Kind of felt like Gulliver.

Last night I took an oatmeal bath. The doctor said I could scratch -- that it wouldn't spread - - so I used my net bath scrunchy thing and scrubbed my rashes that have covered my calves and shins. I thought of Job (from the Old Testament) when Satan afflicted him with boils and soars (ironically, we are studying Job in Bible Study in a chapter on Spiritual Warfare and on top of that a Christian radio program is doing a sermon series this week on Spiritual Warfare - - is God trying to tell me something?) Job had sat by the fire and covered his soars with hot ash to dry them out and then he scraped them with stones. I always thought that sounded so gross! But here I was willing to pay big bucks for a wire brush to scrub my frickin' skin off! I was almost doing that with the bath scrunchy. It hurt but felt SO good at the same time.

Finally the soothing oatmeal infused bath began to sooth -- ahhhh!

(At 6 weeks, Dash, Duke, Spree and Stache)

The kittens were very interested in this bath thing I was doing. All four climbed up on the tub edge, sat there and meowed inquisitively. I put a towel over the edge so they wouldn't slip in.

I've observed that male animals are bigger risk takers than females. Spree was content just sitting there. The boys wanted to touch the water. Dash made an attempt to jump on me but I caught him so quickly and violently, that he shrieked - - like I'd stepped on his tail. He shook it off while Stache and Duke both took turns reaching down into the water with their front paws while I held their hind ends so they wouldn't topple in face first. For some reason, that didn't satisfy their curiosity, so they walked behind me and slipped in. I caught them before more than tail and hind legs got wet. You'd think if one saw the other get wet - - it wouldn't repeat - - so first it was Stache and then Duke. Duke was so humiliated about getting wet, he hid under the bed, where he has collected an nice stash of comfort toys.

You'd think Dash would decide to stay away from the tub at this point, no. I laid back so he wouldn't be able to walk behind and slide down the back of the tub. He decided to take a big step onto my shoulder and onto my chest. Since both of my arms were under water, I had a dilemma, do I grab him with wet hands and get scratched? I let him walk down my body to the water's edge. I figured he'd test the water with a paw and then turn and meow for me to put him on solid dry ground. No! He JUMPS off my body into the tub!

Oh my gosh! You should have seen the surprise on both our faces! He went in, over his head, luckily right above my right hand. So I had him up almost as quickly as he went in. Poor guy went totally limp in my hands as I laid him on the towel. He just snuggled his head into my hand and took some big breaths as I rubbed his wet, little body dry with the towel.

It would have been a great America's Funniest Home video, if it wasn't X-rated. BTW, no video exits. But it would have been funny. I got a good laugh.

Where was Spree this whole time? Just sitting there on the edge watching in amusement, probably thinking, "Boys are so stupid!"