The girls have been very hot recently. I wanted to take a quick peek in to see how they were adapting to the new frames I gave them, so I just barely cracked the lid of Hive 2 and two of the girls launched themselves straight at me, stingers first. I wasn’t wearing any gear (I was just taking a peek!) and got stung on my chest and arm. Ouch!
Really, though, I had it easy compared to Michelle. The next day, she’s washing up in our in our lovely outdoor garden shower, not doing nothing to bother nobody, when she gets stung, too, right on her pupic (that’s Yiddish for stomach, don’t always think so dirty). I didn’t think much of it, after all, I had just been stung twice the day before, and laughed it off, so when she called me later in the day to say it had swollen up like a pancake, I figured she was just being a hypochondriac. “You’re not allergic to bees, Michelle,” I told her. “There’s nothing you can do about, so just ignore it.”
That would have been the hardest part of the story to tell casket-side.
That evening, we headed down to Pioneer Square for the First Thursday Gallery Walk, where we met up with a group of friends, including our E.R. doctor friend Marcus. Michelle, annoyed no doubt at the deaf ear I was turning to her complaints of painful and itching pupic, showed Marcus the sting.
Have you ever seen pictures of cellulitis? Don’t. It’s really nasty. It’s an infection and swelling of the connective tissue under the skin and it can be caused by bacteria, including the flesh-eating kind, that gets introduced through a puncture wound, like maybe a insect sting.
She totally had it.
Luckily, Marcus had some antibiotics on him and his prescription pad as well, so Michelle’s back on the road to recovery, but for real, the swelling was radiating up her chest and down her leg after only eight hours, and it totally could have killed her.
So, ya know, if you get stung and the swelling spreads, get it checked.
Oh, and sorry Michelle. I’ll believe you next time.
