Stinging Criticism

So, I got stung by a bee on Sunday—for the second time in less than a year.  Before that, I had never been stung by a bee.  The first time I was stung, I was standing out in the middle of the parking lot, talking with one of my neighbors, with my dog sitting next to me.  Out of the middle of nowhere, this douchebag of a bee just stung me on the back of my leg.  I wasn’t moving anywhere.  I wasn’t doing anything.  He just stung me.  He was just like most of the musical theater people I went to college with: he made me feel something for a brief moment, then left me annoyed and irritated for three weeks afterwards.  Apparently, I’m mildly allergic to bee stings.  DBB(Douche Bag Bee) stung me, I slapped him dead immediately, and very quickly pulled out the stinger he oh-so-graciously left protruding from the back of my calf.  Nevertheless, I spent the next three weeks with my leg sore, red, and itching like crazy.  It wasn’t so much with the fun.

Well, this last Sunday, I went walking with the dog down around Idlewood Park next to my apartment.  It was around 2:00 in the afternoon.  All of the sudden, right about the time I reached the two big pine trees in the middle of the picture below, I felt a very sharp pain on the underside of my arm…just about where the edge of my t-shirt sleeve would fall.  I didn’t see the culprit, but I knew the sensation…it was a bee sting.  DBB #2! This time, however, I couldn’t find the entry point, and there was no stinger there.  I figured I must have been stung by a wasp, since wasps have straight stingers, and they don’t stay stuck in the skin.  It certainly wasn’t pleasant, but I’m only a mild wuss, so I didn’t care too much.  In fact, I had totally put it out of my mind.

The next day, around 3:00 in the afternoon, I noticed that I was starting to itch something fierce on the bottom of my arm.  I looked, and sure enough, I had a big, fiery, red patch about the size of a slice of American cheese on the bottom of my arm.  It was quite warm to the touch, and stung, itched, and burned like crazy.  I figured, “Huh.  A slightly delayed reaction to a bee sting.  That’s weird.  I took some Benadryl, put some Hydrocortisone cream on there, took a couple of Advil, and went about my day.

Let me diverge from my story for a moment to express that I missed a calling in life as a Pharmacist.  I made some pretty darn killer over-the-counter drug cocktails.  Need treatment for a cold?  Flu?  Hysterical Pregnancy?  Spattergoit?  I can’t make you an OTC drug cocktail that will ease your pains…usually without killing you.  I’m like a St. Mungo’s healer, but without the whimsy or British accent.  I’ve taken enough medication in my life that I have become quite adept at adjusting doses, combining ingredients, and finessing OTC drugs to suit my purposes quite nicely.  Since I went from the age of 25 until about six months ago without having any health insurance (thanks a lot, cheapskate employers!) I couldn’t afford the $120 for a doctor and then another $80 for the prescriptions.  So I made due with $30 and a little ingenuity from Rite Aid.

In any case, by Tuesday morning, the patch of irritation had spread from the point of my bug bite/sting, all the way down to my elbow, and wasn’t letting up at all.  By this morning, the rash had spread from the bug bite to halfway between my elbow and my wrist.  Knowing my luck, a couple more days, and the rash would have made my entire arm fall off at the shoulder.  If I had thought that allowing that to happen would mean that I could go on disability for the rest of my life, I would have considered letting it happen, but alas, I can do my job one-handed.  It would slow my typing speed down from 90 WPM, but it would be an acceptable hit.  The biggest problem is that it was my right arm, and, being right-handed, I would have had to learn how to function as a lefty.  And my handwriting is already sloppy enough.  Besides, I promised myself that when I graduated from my MBA program that my learning days were over forever.

So, I finally broke down and went to the doctor.  He thought that, not only was I likely mildly allergic to bee stings, but that this particular sting had probably also gotten infected.  So, how here I am, back on antibiotics.  Cephalexin.  Also known as Keflex.  This was the pill that I took during more than half of my elementary and secondary school days as treatment for Bronchitis.  Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan helped Middlebook Pharmaceuticals bigwigs make more than a few of their yacht payments because of me, I’m sure.

I’m also on a fairly strong steroid cream to help with the itching.  I’m hoping that, if I use up my steroid cream I’ll start to look a little like this:

P.S., I look pretty hot in that picture, right?  I think I’ll just need a couple more weeks in the gym, and I’ll be there even without the steroid cream. Maybe then I’ll be able to crush all the bees.

P.P.S.  This experience makes me wonder why having the sex talk is referred to as “Talking about the birds and the bees.”  I mean, sure, if you get stung, you swell up for nine months, but somehow, I don’t think that’s what the originators of that phrase had in mind.