In Memorial Of A Honey Bee - And Other Random Nonsense

Well, my 3 week long battle with some kind of garden variety cold blossomed into 6 days of unrelenting fever and full blown upper respiratory infection. At least, that's what the Doctor diagnosed me with yesterday. I, on the other hand, have concluded that I have the Swine Flu which turned into either Walking Pneumonia or Tuberculosis or whatever Satine from Mulin Rouge had that left her coughing up blood until her fateful death. Although, I didn't look nearly as good as Nicole Kidman while coughing up lung shmutz.

So Memorial Day should have been a great weekend... Husband off of work for 3 days, beautiful weather... Instead of beaches and picnics, I was laying in my own feverish sweat, quasi-conscious. By Monday, I was feeling one step up from complete dog crap, so I pumped myself full of Over The Counter Meds and ventured out with the family to a playground and dinner. At the playground, all was going well until the only random bee in the entire 10 acre field decided to sting me. Ya know, just to add insult to injury. Or injury to illness.

Here is the offender. Or a distant cousin, twice removed.


I was wearing flip flops, and it got me right on the foot, near the arch, under my big toe. Now, I am NOT (Thank the Lord) allergic. But, I am very sensitive to bee and wasp venom. More than the general public who feel the sting, and move on with life a few hours later. My husband does not believe this, but it is true. He just thinks I'm dramatic; and that I have a low pain threshold. I remind him I gave childbirth 3 out of 4 times completely au natural (a decision made voluntarily and without a whimper) so I AM good with pain, darn it. But you would not know this the way I was jumping around, shrieking and then falling to the ground writhing in psychotic agony screaming "Take the stinger out!" Such a good example of composure to my children. I was well aware that I was embarrassing myself in front of a number of park-goers, but couldn't stop the theatrics until the stinger was valiantly removed by my chuckling husband (who, by the way removed 2 ticks - one from Pink's head and one from my leg the week before- so he is getting major points).

So, here's the thing about this bee sting. Just a honey bee and the poor thing had to lose its life over my stupid reckless foot that posed no threat to its queen or hive. But, I was sobbing in the car with pain (and a few tears of abject humiliation were thrown in there). My foot blew up like a very ugly balloon (I have very ugly feet, hence the ugly balloon) at dinner. I'm telling you, it's now an entire 48 hours later and my foot is itchy, burning, swollen and numbish, sore and discolored in like a 2 inch diameter around the sting. I even had my skin peeling off like a sunburn around the injection site. Whaaaat is that all about?

A similar experience happened last time I was stung by some kind of mutant, jet- black, gigantic Chernobylesque waspy looking thing that left an enormous stinger in my finger attached to a pulsing pencil-eraser sized venom sac that looked oddly like testicles.... but that's a different story for a different day. On the positive side, this Z-pack antibiotic thing is kicking in and my respiratory infection is improving. And WHY did it take so long for someone to invent an antibiotic that you can take for a mere 5 days instead of an entire fortnight?

So this illness/bee sting story was really supposed to be a side bar, but turned into the whole post, basically. THIS is how exciting my life is. That I seriously have to talk about hacking up a lung and stepping on a bee for hours. Don't worry, though. The other part of my post was only going to be about the crappy Twilight series I am now obsessed with (cue *flush with embarrassment*), how I have roots the size of Texas on top of my head, and how the stupid stolen cheese is STILL unpaid for and sitting in my fridge.

Man, I really need a life.