Oh, I’m so sorry.
Turns out all of Elen’s crud is poison ivy. The first couple of lesions were disguising themselves as a bacterial infection. The doctor said she wouldn’t give her steroids because, if she won’t take any precautions, like wearing long sleeves and not crawling in the undergrowth, she’ll probably need them later in the year when her eyes are swollen shut and she has oozing plaques in her ears.
Anoreth, iirc, finally decided multiple cases of poison ivy were bad enough to be more careful.