Poison ivy failures

 On my walks in the woods I have to pick up branches from the trails, sometimes having to kneel to cut thru them. I picked up some poison ivy on my right inner wrist and my right knee. I very seldom ever kneel on my left knee, almost impossible to get it to a kneeling position with the spasticity of my ankle.

Applying hydocortisone requires squirting it onto the top of my left hand, pulling my right sleeve up with my teeth, and then rubbing my right wrist over the cream on my left hand.  Luckily it is not weeping.  My left hand is pretty much useless for anything at all. My occupational therapist at three weeks gave me my prediction for recovery of that hand.   'According to research, non-use at three weeks likely means it will never recover.' And she was an excellent occupational therapist. Will have to look into mirror therapy now.

With a useless left hand it is impossible to take a picture of my right wrist.

Poison ivy

Last weeks fall had the unpleasant result of getting poison ivy on my left hand. I'm not sure how I managed not getting it on my right hand since I was using that to push myself around to get into a position to stand up again.

One hand challenges

As a result of my trail clearing I got patches of poison ivy/oak/sumac on my good wrist. Applying hydrocortisone there is a challenge, I have to spread some on my bad wrist and rub it against the needed area. Luckily it is not weeping so I don't have to figure out how to attach a 2x2 inch bandage to the area. Other spots on my chest, butt and leg let me know that sensation is working there just fine. Which would theoretically lead to a therapy for reduced sensation areas from your stroke. But your doctor will never suggest purposely going to a stinging nettle or poison ivy patch to get massive numbers of repetitive sensations. In a couple of weeks you could easily get 10,000 repetitions in from this.  Movement on your bad side could be massively encouraged by the need to scratch your good arm.