Monday, September 5, 2011

A Lot to "Bee" Thankful For

Or, it's good to "bee" alive....  I think we could go on all day about the endless puns relating to this story.....

Who recalls this incident?

Adam has some kind of scent in his blood that attracts the most horrible insects: mosquitoes, hornets, yellow jackets.... you know, the ones that bite you. The past few summers, he's been stung by some kind of  yellow jacket, and (in my opinion) his reaction to the stings has gotten increasingly worse (but any doctor might tell you that it doesn't happen that way with stings --- it's not a resistance that breaks down over time after repeated bites).

Well, fast forward to saturday morning. All was lovely in the world: our first cyclo-cross race of the season. We woke Noella up (yes, we are insane people who do this ON A SATURDAY to kick our own asses on bikes) and left the parking lot at 7am to make my race start time in Vancouver. We registered me just in the nick of time. Adam had exactly 3 minutes from the time I was crossing the finish line to get to his start position. I barely got to watch him race, as I was trying to change, wrangle a dog and a wild and crazy toddler all at the same time.  After cheering for him during one lap, we find him after he's done.

The next 15 minutes are a blur, as he's rushing to load the bikes and the stroller in the car, I'm shoving the dog and Noella in the car. He's breaking out in hives head to toe telling me to google ER's in Vancouver, WA. I calmly get us to the main road and luckily stumble onto a hospital about two minutes away. I tell him he needs to check himself in so I can park and get Noella.

When I walk in, the nurses at the registration area are all huddled together talking seriously about a man who'd been stung and "oh my gosh I've never seen someone react like that" and "he really scared me"...... I blurt out "are you talking about Adam?". The lovely lady at the front desk happened to catch Adam as he passed out at reception. He didn't have trouble breathing, but had some kind of shock or panic attack.

She ushers us into his room, where I'm overwhelmed by a dozen people in the room, Adam hooked up to oxygen, IV's, electrodes ---- looking completely out of it. And not totally aware that we were in the room. Just a tad bit scary. No actually, that moment of me just walking in - no one having said anything to me yet - was definitely one of the top 5 most scary moments of my life.  Noella had no clue what was going on. If she did, she probably would have been crying and clinging to me, but she just looked extremely confused and kept saying "Dada, nigh-night?".

Anyway long story, semi-shorter: he is allergic to bee stings. He is fine, other than being slightly itchy still. He will need to see an allergist to receive shots to help with the reactions and he must carry an Epi-pen with him at all times (he already has one for shellfish).

Phew! That was a long story! For those of you who are still with me, here are some pictures of our ER adventure:

Me trying to help Noella wind down so she can take a damn nap already!


Hanging with Dada in his hospital bed watching college football and eating pretzels. Totally normal saturday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OMG, By the looks of it that bee sting took off the upper right corner of your head!