I’m the total opposite of you in regards to the poison ivy. I’m allergic to all sorts of other plants, but I am an avid gardener despite this. While I am careful around poison ivy when I see it, I barely break out with it, including when I pull it. Once in a while I will get a blister or a small string of them. I think it’s because I’m allergic to so many other things, but I have no idea. Maybe God just has a sense of humor.
Man, I got into some poison oak once and my arms, my legs, my face were covered. It went on for weeks and weeks and wouldn’t heal. It ate away the skin like battery acid and I oozed yellow liquid and blood for three weeks. Finally I went to the emergency room, and I’m telling you, when I cracked off the yellowed, hardened rags I’d wrapped around my arms and legs, the ER doctor and nurse literally stepped back from me like “Whoa.” They put me on steroids and it still took two more weeks before I wasn’t practically hallucinating with out-of-body misery. The scars on my legs were visible for 3 years.