So the swelling in my ring finger finally abated about a week ago and (happy day!) I was able to put my wedding ring back in it's rightful place. It was wonderful! It was glorious! It was...short lived.
See, what had happened was I was in my garden trying for the fourth time to kill this ant pile that refuses to die. Refuses. To. Die. I've put so much poison in that garden bed, that anything I grow will probably poison us all, but those dang ants will not be defeated. Dang ants.
Anyway, I'm in the garden, shaking this bag of granulated poison over the garden bed of aggravation when I felt a sting on the back of my hand. I remember apologizing to the ants for trying to kill them when I realized it hurt so much worse than any other sting I've gotten this year, and I've been stung a lot. I'm pretty sure I'm starting to develop ant-y powers I've been stung to such a degree.
At any rate, I glanced at my hand and found the site of the sting was already beginning to swell and then caught sight of the perpetrator flying away. HORNETS!
The hornets and I have been engaged in a terse dance this season. They fly around like they own the place and I destroy any nests I find which is why I think they got wise and finally hid it because I didn't see where my assailant came from, and the tears in my eyes kept me from seeing where it disappeared.
I decided to soldier on and watered all my plants and trees with my hand elevated because I wasn't going to be knocked off course by some winged honey wannabe. Once the plants had been hydrated, I went into the house and informed Mr. D that I had been stung and then grabbed an ice pack to ply to my hand. Once I stopped moving, the stinging really set in. My hand was on fire!
Google told me that ice and acetaminophen would be my best friends so I downed some Tylenol and kept my hand elevated and iced.
I don't know why I thought that the swelling would reach it's maximum on the day of the sting, but let me just tell you, that is not the case. In the middle of the night my hand started to itch and in my sleepy stupor, I scratched and the more I scratched, the more it itched. I tried to make my brain tell my hand to stop scratching but it just felt so great.
The next morning my hand was so swollen it looked like a flesh colored Mickey Mouse glove. The skin was so tight it was shiny. My index finger and middle finger were so swollen they rubbed together like a fat girls thighs (my thighs) and my ring was beginning to impress on my finger like play-doh. At my eldest daughter's insistence, I took my wedding ring off, again. So close, yet so far away.
The itching became unbearable as did the swelling and redness. I took three Benadryl because it seemed like a good idea at the time. After half an hour nothing had changed so I asked Mr. D to take me to an urgent care facility where, wouldn't you know it, that Benadryl kicked in just as I walked in the clinic. My hand still itched but I almost didn't care anymore. The doctor showed up about half an hour later, took a quick glance and told me it wasn't infected, but he could give me a steroid shot to help with the swelling. Or he could write me a prescription for steroid pills. Whatever I wanted. He seemed to be unaware of the fact that my hand was about to split at the seams because he asked me again if I wanted a shot (quick fix) or pills (less quick fix). I showed him my hand and told him it hurt like a bad word and I would like the shot, please!
Now my backside stings, too.
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