Beware of the Bees

I thought that only 8-year-olds got bee stings. Like it was a rite-of-passage for adults to not have to worry about the little buzzing buggers anymore. I was dead wrong. In the past 16 months, I have been stung twice. Both time, on the foot. And I'm embarrassed about it, considering it seems like such a kiddie thing to have happen; apparently I'm not strong enough to defend myself against one of God's tiniest creatures. On the other hand, as much as it angers me, I suppose it is the bee's purpose to find unsuspecting feet like mine to dive into, latch on, and inject its poison through a small but serious poke. Yet, there is advice, isn't there, about how to avoid bee stings? If you don't bother the bee, then it won't bother you. It can "smell" fear so remain calm. The bee has it's job and you have yours, so just be careful not to cross each other.

So, how do I continue to be a victim? Well, I suppose it's my fault because I keep stepping on the bee. Maybe I should be apologizing for stomping all over him/her. The first of my two foot-stings was while I was happily prancing along the beach at Cinque Terre in Italy. After a long, exhausting, rather sweaty hike with my group of friends, I was relieved by the cooling waters of the Mediterranean. Unfortunately I hadn't brought along a pair of flip-flops on this day trip but figured I'd be okay walking down to the water (after all, I do this on the Oregon coast). But walking towards the water, and finding it rather cold, I turned back after a brief photo-op, and trapped an unsuspecting bee under my right 4th toe. I squished him about halfway to his death, but he stabbed me before I had enough reason to release him from the grip of my toes.

In this case, it had been about ten years since I'd had a bee sting of any kind, so I was a little unaware of the implications. I simply washed it off in the cold water to take the sting away, and stuck it back in my shoe. I was surprised at the aching, stinging sensation that continued, so I examined it further and did some make-shift surgery in the sand, squeezing the toe. Though the stinger came out, bees clearly leave enough poisonous residue to last about a week. Over the next several days I noticed swelling, itching, burning, and way more swelling. And of course I was in Europe, traveling with a suitcase that didn't contain any of the necessary home remedies or over-the-counter products to relieve the pain of a bee sting. I bummed band-aids off my travel mates and wrapped the toe so that it was small enough to fit in my shoe. But eventually I realized that this toe was only going to get more infected if it wasn't treated properly. Luckily, Italy isn't foreign to "Apothecaries" and some friends joined me in Venice to search out some generic form of Benadryl cream. One friend, studying pre-med, convinced me she had found the equivalent, but we decided to double-check this with the pharmacist on duty. We imitated a buzzing bee, did hand motions to signal a sting, and pointed to the product. He didn't understand. He pulled out an English-Italian dictionary, I found the word bee, and he laughed. "No, no" he said, "Thees izz for, ugh, thee" and then he pointed to his rear-end. Oh, sure, hemorrhoid cream. He walked over to the shelf and pulled out another product. Your basic hydrocortisone cream, and I quietly paid him and thanked him, and left the store. I guess a bee sting is better than the other possible ailments.

The rest of the trip I was squeezing cream onto my toe and popping benadryl tablets before bedtime. My poor roommate would always be in the middle of a conversation with me before bedtime when she would find me conked out with my bandaged, creamed toe in the air. Others were a little grossed out by constant hand-to-foot treatments and accused me of not washing my hands often enough. Had I been at home, I would have been a little more careful, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

By the time I returned home from Europe, the sting was much improved, the swelling had gone way down, and there was almost no sign of the bee's entrance into my toe, except for a few pictures of my cortisone-cream application. However, three days ago, when another bee found itself underneath my left foot, I knew immediately what had taken place. Somehow, he found his way into my shoe this time, I stepped down and thought it was a twig, so I lifted my foot out to shake it free, and that's when the bee and I came face to face. He was hanging from my foot, and I shook him and shook him and he continued to hang on for dear life, to give me all the poison that was possible. Dreadful thing. I stumbled across the grass and vowed to do it the right way this time. Tweezers, baking soda, benadryl cream...check. And yet even with the correct procedures and medications, three days later, my foot is still slightly swollen and rashy, and at night when I'm half-asleep and reach down to itch it, oh how it burns.

Beware of the bees. They mean business.