This AM it was worse than yesterday so I was inspired to go to the walk-in clinic near my house. The DR said 'Yep, it's a mild allergic reaction' and gave me some Zyrtec samples to take. I guess if the redness spreads up my foot to my leg, then I'm in trouble. Otherwise the red poofy warm-to-the-touch foot is just going to be like that for a while. AND it itches like mad. Damn it. I'd really like to run but I can barely walk. Stupid bee.

Really - I thought maybe I'd have palpitations after getting STUNG BY A BEE! Let me tell you how my day started -

I was walking Shiva and wearing a pair of Tevas. Just a stroll around the block on the sidewalk. Typical morning. All of the sudden I felt pain in my right foot and I said "F*ck" and looked down and saw a bee stinging the crap out of me. It looked like it was almost trapped under the strap and just taking it out on my foot. I started repeating "f*ck f*ck f*ck" and shaking my foot to get rid of the damn thing. Shiva heard me swearing and he looked at me all apologetically as if I were reprimanding him. I think when I shook my foot I might have even kicked poor Shivster. Then HE gets stung and he is so confused. He thought he was in trouble -- I'm yelling, swearing, kicking him and then he feels a sharp pain in his leg. The poor kid. He was so traumatized! I saw that there were more bees or yellow jackets (I'm not sure what they were) around the sidewalk. So I dropped Shiva's leash, I ran out to the street and yelled "Run, Shiva, run!" We both took off like some cartoon bears after raiding the honeycomb. I think it probably was comical except for the fact that my foot (it stung the middle toe on my right foot) hurt like hell and Shiva kept stopping to try to comfort his leg.

We got home and Gary removed the stinger from my toe and I removed the stinger from Shiva's leg. The stingers were straight (I think honey bees have hooked ones). Do yellow jackets lose their stinger when they sting? Does that mean that the bastards that stung us died for doing so? Yay! That would be poetic justice.

I also took a Benadryl and gave one to Shiva. Here was my dilemma and I fully recognize that hypochondria runs in my family -- I can't tell you the number of times my brother has thought he's having a heart attack (could be the drugs?) or a brain tumor. But I had a real dilemma. The last time I was stung was in 1998 or 1999 when I was in library school. I was sitting in front of the library at UIUC and the damn thing stung me through my skirt! It was a yellow jacket that time. 48 hours later when I went to the UIUC Health Center the absolutely crazy dr I saw measured the red circle around the sting (7 cm diameter) and the pink circle embracing that one (don't remember how freakin huge that was) and she decided it was an allergic reaction. She gave me Prednisone and told me one of the side effects was "temporary psychosis" (I shit you not. I did find myself crying during Jeopardy while on Prednisone so I think she was spot on with that one). I told her that I had been stung before as a kid and never had a reaction so therefore I with my fat medical degree didn't think it could be an allergy. She countered that each time one gets stung the reaction is worse (that sucks) and therefore it could be that I was indeed developing an allergy. She said that this time the reaction was localized but that future stings could very well lead to systemic reactions. Nice. She prescribed an Epipen and cautioned me to carry it whenever outside. Her advice if I was ever stung again - Benadryl, then Epipen, then Dr. Yay! So, a couple years after that incident I'm in PA and my insurance was pretty damn good so I actually had an allergist(!). I told him that story and he, without having seen any of the reaction, decided it sounded more like an infection. He refused to renew my Epipen prescription stating that many people do themselves more damage than good with one of those.

So, am I allergic or not? This is the question I had this morning as I watched my toe swell up. I felt a bit woozy -- was that an allergic reaction or just the fact that Benadryl made my world a little "bendy"? I watched the pinkness spread to the top of my foot. Uh oh. Well, so far it hasn't spread beyond that so I think I'm okay. The sting was 11 hours ago and I'm not sure how long it is supposed to throb but I'm just keeping an eye on the color. So far no need to amputate.

I don't have "Flight of the Bumblebee" on my iPod but I did listen to "Como abeja al panal" while writing this. It only seemed appropriate.

Now that I'm done putting together the brief powerpoint presentation I'm giving my colleagues on my Rare Books School experience, I'll head home.