Thursday, August 24, 2006

The Sting of Summer...

Ah, what a nice pair of sunglasses, eh? Except I wasn't wearing them on my ride home from work the other night. Actually, I stopped wearing sunglasses a few years ago - and just got used to riding without them - it was one less thing to tote around. Anyway, I was tooting along, minding my own business, when a big fat bee came right at me and hit and stung me on my right eyelid!! OUCH!!!! I stopped and got off the path - boy did it hurt! It felt like someone had taken a pool cue stick and hit me right on my eye! I took my waterbottle which had been in the freezer at work, and applied it to my eyelid, but it didn't do much. I could see the stinger on my eyelid. I decided to head into Old Towne Alexandria, a mile or two ahead, and call my roommate to see if she could come pick me up. I am allergic to bees, and my eyelid and the area around it was quickly becoming puffy. I stopped at a drugstore on the way to see what the pharmacist would recommend taking. They said to get some Benadryl and then see a doctor, as it looked like it was getting worse. At this point, my eye was quite swollen, along with my upper lip becoming numb, and my hands and feet getting an itchy rash. So my roommate picked me up and we headed right over to the medical center for a doctor to take a look. They gave me an ice pack to apply, and then some medicine to take away the swelling and rash, along with prescriptions to get filled. I took the next day off from work, because when I woke up, my eye was still pretty swollen and was only a thin slit to peer out of.

So, the moral of the story is to wear protective eyewear, even if you don't think you need to. You never know what you'll run into!!