You’ll note that I haven’t been writing much lately. At first, it was the jet lag. As you might have guessed from the cell-phone pictures, Sarah and I were stuck in an airport for quite some time (27 hours in Philadelphia). All told, we traveled for a little longer than 47 hours (bad weather caused some cancelled flights), but we were also bumped twice, which allowed us to earn four, free, roundtrip tickets anywhere in the U.S. It’s quite a blessing. Because of tiredness, then, I wasn’t completely motivated to write. After we got back, my Uncle Mike and Aunt Gayle were visiting from Florida, and we were doing a lot of family stuff. Later in the week, I was just lazy. Then came yesterday.

Yesterday, I almost died. Sometimes, I say things like that, and I mean that I went through a difficult situation but didn’t really ever actually face death. Yesterday was real. It started with some heavy rain. We’d been having a heat wave, and, on Wednesday night, we finally got some relief: there was a three-hour thunderstorm and torrential rain. The storm was over by Thursday (yesterday), but the rain persisted. Dad had previously gone back to our creek and found it so swollen that he thought we might be able to traverse it with a canoe, and since it normally it isn’t much more than a trickle, I figured I better go back and check it out.

When I arrived, I found that we did, indeed, have a river running through our backyard. It was quite a sight, and I immediately headed deeper into the woods for further investigation. I came to a spot where two sections of the creek converge and found the whole area was completely flooded. I had my camera with me, and I tried to work my way to a spot where I could accurately capture the scene that was before me. In order to reach where I wanted to go, I needed to cross a section of water via a downed tree. I was quite proud of myself as I tiptoed across a trunk that couldn’t have been more than three or four inches in diameter. What I didn’t expect was the white-hot pain near my shoulder-blade.

At first, I thought I’d just run into a pernicious horse-fly (they grow pretty large around here), but when I craned my neck, I spotted the culprit. It was a wasp (or hornet, all I saw was yellow and black). At first, I was just irritated: what was I doing to him that he’d sting me for no reason? As I realized that I was being repeatedly stung by very upset insects, my annoyance quickly turned to, “AHHHHH!!!! I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!!” I ran a few steps through the ankle deep water (by now, I’d crossed the creek and was in a swamp), and the hornets followed, still stinging. I decided it was now or never and, like a crazed bear, tore through the woods and ran to the house to take a shower.

Breathless, I burst into the kitchen, calling for tweezers (for the stingers) and Benedryl (for my allergy to bees), and I jumped into the shower. I hadn’t been stung in years, and these seemed to hurt significantly more than I’d remembered, but I didn’t start to get worried until I put two and two together: my ears were swelling (a bad sign: hadn’t been stung there), my armpits and groin where itching (another bad sign: hadn’t been stung there, thankfully), and my chest was starting to tighten (the cherry on top and worst sign of all). It was then that I decided I’d better go to the hospital.

Although I’d not previously had this kind of reaction, I knew enough to realize that I was in the early stages of anaphylactic shock (I think getting stung 10+ times really pushed my over the, shall we say, allergic edge). Whoops. It turned out to be God’s provision that I decided to go to the ER: my symptoms continued to worsen as we neared the hospital, and, by the time we arrived, my face was purple, my lips and ears were huge, and I’d broken out into hives (they covered my entire body and looked amazingly horrifying). A nurse tended to me immediately; I was hooked into an IV, given some drugs, and observed for about two hours. As it turns out, the doctor said that if I hadn’t come in, the end result would have been my death.

I look fine this morning and don’t have much pain (though two of the stings are still really sore). I’m supposed to take a 5-day course of steroids and continue taking Benedryl until tomorrow. The doctor also wrote me a prescription for an EpiPen (synthetic adrenalin) and told me to keep one on hand at all times. Because I was stung so many times, it’s unknown whether I’ll react this way if I get stung again (by just a single bee; I doubt that I’ll ever have a pleasant reaction to being swarmed), but I suppose it’s good to be cautious…

P.S. See pictures below