Elbows and Steroids

Two weeks ago, I did some ambitious weeding, eradicating the extremely invasive garlic mustard (such an innocuous name) from my north yard. I worked on it several hours.

I saw some wild raspberry brambles, which produce small, dryish berries, and I pulled them. There must have been some other ‘leaves of three’, but I didn’t notice them.

Two days later, driving to Charleston, South Carolina, for Spoleto Music Festival, I developed a large welt on the inside of my upper arm and a small patch of rash below my elbow. I thought it was an allergic reaction to a spider bite. Over the next six days, more and more tiny red bumps erupted on the inside of my arms, little pin-pricks, smaller than mosquito bites, developing into archipelagos surrounded by seas of hot, angry red skin. By Wednesday, I could barely bend my arms. After our last concert, a sweet usher noticed me leaving. She pointed to my arms and said, “Is that poison ivy? It looks very painful. I've had that. The only thing that works is steroids.”

We found an urgent care office and I got a steroid shot. I'm sure it didn't have an immediate effect, but I felt instantly better: the desperation of the past six days melted away. Oral prednisone promised steady recovery.

My dad, Dr. George G. Hazen, received a patent in 1963 for a process simplifying and speeding the production of steroids (particularly A-anhydrosteroids from ll-hydroxy-steroids). I'm grateful for his careful and creative research.

I hoped our vacation would include time reading and writing. However, the rashes on my arms made it painful and difficult to bend my elbows enough to use the keyboard, hold a book, or even help with a jigsaw puzzle.

I never realized what a blessing elbows are. I spent several days with my arms out straight, careful not to bump them on anything, and several nights sleeping on my back, Ziploc bags full of crushed ice tied to both arms with long black sox.

The concerts were wonderful: the Miami City Ballet, Samuel Barber's Adagio, an Australian circus troupe, Backbone, taking on gravity and other myths. But there were many uncomfortable hours of inactivity.

I understand how useful opposable thumbs are in making and handling tools. But elbows: I hope I never take them for granted again.