Health
Strawberry Patches – 5 Ways of Describing a Rash
By Jennifer S.
I. Origin Stories
Growing up, I was informed I was allergic to strawberries. Despite our incongruent relationship, the fruits were a regular dessert at my family’s breakfast table. Clothed in whip cream and caramel syrup, strawberries nestled comfortably in glass dishes while I squirmed and scratched regular itches.
“You’ll grow out of it one day,” I was told regularly.
“When?” I’d reply.
Shoulders would shrug but never pause long enough to wonder why they insisted on the regular splurge all while knowing that for me the fruit was off limits — chocolate dip a regular accompaniment. Atop pancakes and French toast, freshly cut strawberries piled alongside cutting words.
I’d swallow grapefruit slices while weaving my own cocoon to resist the scratch of their silent indifference. As I watched family members dab at juice stains with paper napkins, I’d long for a taste of the plump, sweet fruit.
It’s the same fruit that I’d one day, years later, read about to my babies. Like the leads in Audrey Wood’s The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I was always hungry. Some characters sought fresh fruit; I sought love that escaped me.
II. Towards Peak Condition
Whenever the itches quieted, I’d avoid strawberries and focus on living. Tiny prickles across my legs and chest were a sign that seeds of rashes were always watching. Strawberries were my first memory of round-the-clock scratches. Unlike the Hungry Caterpillar, I did not wish for more of them. Instead, I took care to avoid rash decisions. Despite my best efforts, my skin’s unpredictable state persisted.
I’d revisit rashes throughout various life stages —
During cross-country moves. After an inadvertent sunburn. When bitten by an unidentified flying object. While sitting for final exams. When reciting final good-byes.
Mostly, I marked time by the patches of rashes. Ultimately, I was officially diagnosed with a variety of auto-immune deficiencies. I’m not immune to, and cannot control, life’s hostilities.
No matter what the doctors inferred, I understood the rashes as an automatic reaction to life’s prickly situations. Doctors took notes as I listed and listened to my own observations. I documented an incomplete list of rash infractions and patterns.
- New babies. No bottles.
- Halloween catsuits. Stray kittens.
- Overseas wars. Stateside losses. Shiva calls.
- Weeks with no updates. Updated routines.
- Hair dyes. My baby’s surgery. Standby flights.
- A near miss on the Turnpike. A missed turnstile.
- A trip to the Acme for a friend’s last birthday — strawberry shortcake.
- Receiving my birth certificate, marked Do Not Return to Sender in red Expo marker.
- A global pandemic. Superstitions stitched with warnings.
- Surrogate family. Never getting to say goodbye.
I mastered face-reading and learned that lines and expressions on skin canvases are as powerful as words. Once I realized the patches aligned with real world events, I practiced pruning.
“Correlation is not the same as causation,” doctors would say, clearly tired of my questions. “Plus, it needs to be better managed.”
Their pencils would scratch as orders for new tests stacked like berries in a glass dish. My hopes for garden-variety answers were continuously dashed.
Recently a particularly bad rash appeared quietly. A text from a number I hadn’t heard from in over ten years, ever since I disconnected my landline, may have been the seed that triggered the patch.
Amidst a bushel of small flares and senescence fears, the small specks angered. I thought, incorrectly, that I had the rash confined to a controlled situation. Strawberry season sprouted early this year. My body revolted.
III. When Small Seeds Flare
“Make it stop,” I pleaded, my voice shaking. “I’ll do anything.”
Typically, friends, and family would call my risk-averse self out immediately. But then, with my body covered in itchy, scratchy, red patches that would not stop spreading, they created space and encouraged more appointments with strangers. This was new territory.
Flares fuel unfamiliar patches and patterns.
I was first diagnosed with psoriasis after a familial and unfamiliar trauma. Ever since, the autoimmune disorder had taken up residence in a body I no longer know or control.
I sat on a paper-covered navy-blue medical chair (the “hot seat” according to a tech, when it’s my body that’s inflamed) and thought – It’s true. I was wide open (not yet cut) and cunning (also running) for relief.
Not all patches protect.
A tech in soft pink clothing, her scrubs the color of a strawberry’s flesh, checked my vitals.
“What brings you in today?” she asked.
I tugged at the collar of my cotton tee-shirt and lifted my hair, a blanket I used as a curtain.
“Oh, Hon,” she exclaimed, “Hold on. Let me get help. Make yourself comfortable.”
Help is not easily claimed, and comfort is not easily made, I remember thinking.
Inhale. Exhale. Breathe.
Hold. One. Two. Three.
A man in turquoise scrubs entered the examination room and immediately asked a series of questions. Despite the complexity of the autoimmune condition his routine appeared automatic, if not automated.
When did it begin? Did you treat it?
With what? How often?
I began to elaborate, but he quickly continued. My narrative was not needed for his series of closed-ended inquiries.
Not all flames are kindled with information.
As his eyes pierced my skin, I conducted a silent self-reflection. I should have seen the flare coming. Same time as last year. The roadworkers dispensed orange cones and yellow tape just before dawn. Planes, trains, and automobiles converged. My ruminations neither interrupted nor influenced his clinical review.
Not all flames can be controlled.
He wriggled his hands into a second pair of blue gloves, then pulled at the elastic around his wrist.
My nerves snapped.
With a microscope, he zoomed in close, closer, closer still, then stopped.
“Does this hurt?” he asked as his finger pad pressed my red, patchy skin.
“Yes,” I screamed as intense itching and fiery burns kindled in ways I had never seen.
“We need a biopsy,” he said, then plucked an iPad and instructed me to sign.
I complied.
“It’s a punch biopsy,” he stated, and only then could I relate, having punched my pillow for hours the prior six nights straight.
As he prepped a tray, I shifted my position and spoke over the crinkle of the paper’s protective barrier, “Make it stop. Please.”
My voice was higher — more like a soprano in G minor than its usual alto. The paper was too thin to conceal and too ineffective a barrier for him not to hear. I watched his nostrils flare.
Flares dare.
He and his assistant, a shadowing student, caught each other’s eyes, one a bright green, the other blue. So different than the dark shadows beneath mine. He must be in his thirties. She’s likely no more than twenty-five. Over fifty years of combined experience, I thought. It’s got to mean something.
“Please,” I repeated. “Make it stop.”
I knew my voice was irritating. I no longer cared. My insistence surely couldn’t be as irritating as the persistence of my current flare.
Flares sometimes spark uncontrollable flames.
I wanted to share – I might have had COVID. I tried a new shampoo. Roast beef was on sale last week. I sought explanation while he sought more room.
“Count to two,” he said. “There, the worst part’s done.”
As he worked, I revealed more information.
“Four stitches,” he said, as I lay on the paper-covered chair, fully extended, face down.
I whispered possible triggers to the heavy air.
“Okay, done,” he stated.
“What now?” I asked as I noted the continued burning sensation.
“We wait,” he responded. “If you hear nothing in two weeks, they’ll do further testing.”
I held back tears, adjusted my shirt and hair, then followed him out of the room.
“To the right,” he said.
I had nothing left.
At the front desk, a girl scanned a paper in my hand, “You’re all set.”
Water doesn’t calm all sparks.
Not yet, I remember thinking. I left the building and walked briskly to my car.
Tears flooded the engine as I turned the key in the ignition. I pressed the gas and drove. I did not stop.
Patches, flares, flames, and sparks dare, then explode.
IV. Follow-Up
Eventually, I ran out of gas and returned home. On the way, I passed a sign that read “Strawberries for Sale” but kept driving. Over the next several days, patches spread no matter what lotion, tonic, or motion I plucked and adopted. With no fresh seeds of ideas, I settled into a new strawberry-hued slump and waited.
The doctor called two weeks later, his voices a blend of compassion and concern.
“How are you doing?”
“The same,” I said. “Maybe slightly better, but I think I’m getting used to it.”
“That’s not the goal,” he answered. “Can you come in?”
“Yes, sure. When?”
“How about 2 o’clock?”
I arrived ten minutes early, then waited some more.
After an hour, my name was called.
The doctor came into the room. “I’m sorry to make you wait so long,” he said.
“No problem,” I replied as his eyes tracked my skin.
Treatment goals not yet achieved.
“You know, I believe you can scratch a rash into existence,” the doctor said.
I know, I thought. And?
“The biopsy yielded inconclusive results.”
“Looks like a strawberry patch,” he continued as a fresh-faced medical student took notes.
I also made note of their choice of terms.
“Perhaps we should run some patch tests.”
Up until then I had said nothing.
“No,” I replied. “Not today.”
“You’ve got something?” he asked. “I hope we’re not ruining your plans.”
I remained quiet. What I’d like to know is why no one ever told me the greasy foam would ruin my computer’s touch pad.
“Do you sweat at night?”
“Sometimes,” I said, but didn’t elaborate.
Pencils scribbled. After a side bar, the doctor prescribed new creams.
“Caution,” he said, “Don’t use it in skin folds. It can thin skin.”
I visualized the fold of a strawberry’s root, then asked what that meant.
“Atrophy,” the doctor said. “Loss of collagen.”
All I could think of was a post-trophy sundae with a berry on top.
“Thanks for the tip,” I replied then caught myself wishing they had a poet for an assistant.
As I squirmed, I imagined the fun they might have describing the patterns that had formed on my skin. I’d do anything to avoid more injections, and as my flares worsened, my confidence in medical answers disappeared.
“Can you follow-up in four weeks?” the doctor interrupted my meanderings.
Back to our regular routine.
“Sure,” I said as I left, intending to continue to sow my own patterns (and increasingly content doing so).
V. Strawberry-Hued Resolutions
Now, although I am much more aware of triggers, I’m still unable to control the strawberry-shaped flares with reliable consistency. Despite the irregularity, I’ve adopted semi-bruise-proof strategies.
Before sleep, I write in sketchbooks with strawberry patches on their covers — glossaries of good things; lists with meaning; reminders to breathe. It’s a tenuous pact with the garden that is my skin. We agree to breathe and, sometimes, allow each other to be.
I’ve also learned to confront rashes with instinctive intensity. I patch flares with tools of my own choosing. I prioritize sleep. I select which calls, conversations, and cuts to answer. I remain firmly planted in my own patch and scratch less haphazardly. I now understand my goal as not to eliminate the strawberry patches but to manage their spread.
I recently started a small strawberry garden in my backyard. The cliché “if you can’t beat them, join them” feels unexpectedly friendly. I can’t predict how well I’ll tend to my garden of regularly changing dimensions, but I feel more empowered, with tools equal seeds experimental, holistic, and academic, to try. Mostly, I no longer mark time by rashes and more deeply appreciate the times between patches.
About the Author
Jennifer S.is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate. Her most recent collections, 14 (Plus) Reasons Why, published by free lines press, and Evening Walks: A Collection of Recollections, published by Ethel, are now available. On (Pantry) Stock & (Kitchen) Timers, published by Querencia Press, is forthcoming.
