 So, as some of you know, I was stung by a bee on Saturday. And I am allergic to bees. The hubs took this picture last night of my poor bee-stung finger. I have my left hand over my right so you can compare the two pinkies; the swelling had actually faded a bit by that time but it was considerably more swollen earlier (my attempt to take a picture myself, using my chin to press the button, was less than successful. The picture came out but the angle was odd.) So you can't see how big the finger actually was. You also can't see the deep bruising at the knuckles. And of course you cannot see that it itches like mad and it hurts to move my finger at all. Which is bad. Stupid bee. Why am I telling you all of this? I don't know, really. It just seemed that, having taken the trouble to actually photograph the wound (and that spot on my finger is where I was actually stung; it's a horrible blistery thing), I should share it with someone besides my mother. But now it's your turn. You don't have to provide photographic evidence, but go ahead and tell me about an allergy of yours. Or an injury. Or something terrible. Share away! |
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When I was 7 I fell on a broken bottle and a big chunk sliced my knee open. I still have the scar.
So. I'm prepared for scar show and tell when that eventually happens.
Don't have major allergies, but I do have one interesting injury story. And it all related back to shrimp. I love shrimp, can't really explain why, but I always ordered it when I was a young one. I also love Japanese cooking, so we went to a lot of Japanese restaurants, you know the kind where they cook in front of you?
I don't remember why we went that day, but I ordered the same thing as usual (shrimp) and he asked if I wanted it flaming. I said sure, shrimp is always better with fire.
Yeah, you can probably guess where this one is going.
We didn't realize he accidentally sprayed me with the oil/alcohol used to flame the shrimp until he lit it and it raced across the table and into my face. Ended up having burns over half my face and head for about six months and I coughed up charcoal for a few days after the fact.
The scary part is, if it wasn't for the pictures, I have trouble believing it happened--I didn't scar, burn injuries, or anything serious. Made the lawsuit a bit harder to justify, but eight years after the fact, there was no sign that I had half my head covered in scabs and healing wounds for an entire summer.
Well, kind of understandable. I only have two scars from my entire childhood, despite broken an arm (splinted it myself with duct tape!), got road rash (face plant on a bike), and came home bleeding more times than not (I *love* that field and dump behind my dad's house).
When I was eightish I was riding my bike and ran into the back of a parked truck. Ended up with a goose eggs on my forehead and a couple of gashes in on my left leg.
How did I manage to run into a parked car? I had my head down because I didn't want my neighbors to talk to me when I passed (they were weird). I looked up at the last second. The truck belonged to the weird neighbors. They drove me home in that freakin truck.
Nifty scar on my knee from falling onto a piece of metal when I was three. Years later an ortho surgeon asked me who did my knee surgery.
Allergy - onions. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get Chinese, Mexican or southern Italian(red sauce)food with no onions in it? Thank God for mom-and-pop restaurants where they make it to order!
I'm allergic to crab. I didn't know this because I guess I didn't eat much crab and the allergy seems to just get worse as time goes by, so maybe I didn't notice before. When I was 21, I went to Red Lobster and ordered CHICKEN FINGERS. I got so itchy and covered in a rash for TWO DAYS - I missed work and was in bed. So they must have cooked the chicken fingers in the same oil as crab. I now hate Red Lobster and refuse to go there. They suck. When I drive by them I feel itchy just thinking about the miserable two days when I had that rash.
Mark- I can one up the knee scar. We were renovating a basement wall when I was 14. I tripped and got a piece of rebar through the knee. Got stitched up. Stitches came out a couple of days later but there was no way I was going through that again. So I secretly used butterfly band aids. It's a doozy of a scar.
And Jaye- Don't feel bad. My dad was in his early 40s when he was adjusting my new bike and hit a parked car. I had to call 911 because he was going into shock. Turns out he separated his shoulder which required pins to fix.
Many stings and bites take place during the fall
months as the temperature of the days decrease. Reason being, bees, wasps and
insects in general are cold blooded and they linger around people and pets in order
to absorb body heat, therefore increasing the chances of getting stung or bitten.
Last week, I witnessed a 4 year old girl with her hand and forearm swollen
to her elbow, from a wasp sting that she received to her fingertip the day
before. The sight of her hand and arm brought tears to my eyes because I knew
that if she had had
Baker's Venom Cleanser available when she was stung, none of her discomfort
would have elevated to that extreme point of swelling and discomfort.
Our web site www.BeeStingCure.com
has under gone some new additions worth taking a look at. Old
news commentary video footage from 1988 has been added to
YouTube.com/BeeStingCure
and the link is available at our site. Our formula also works to stop the itch
of the dreaded Itch Mite!
I'm allergic to bleach, forcing me to use bleach alternatives on my clothing and other products for cleaning purposes.
Unfortunately, I also work in retail and am in charge of the cleaners, including all the bleach products. I am always rushing off to soak my hands in water after stocking the clorox and such.
I got bit by a black widow while at my kids school camp out last year this time. I was on our annual sunrise hike, got called to a birth and ran two miles down the mountain, drove to the birth center in 40 minutes, (usually takes 1 1/2 hours!) caught a baby an hour later and when we sent the new family home that evening, I finally took a look at my sore foot. I thought it was broken! I was too tired to go to the emergency room though, so I figured I'd sleep and go in the morning. Unfortunately, I got called to another birth in the wee hours and had to work all day on the foot. I didn't make it to the ER until Sunday, two whole days after I got bit! I was starting to feel bad by then, but I just chalked it up to tired. The doc thought it was broken as well. I got x-rays and the tech noticed that my ankle was hot in one place, but no break. we didn't figure out that it was a spider bite until the next day when I started getting the purple lines radiating. I was sick for two weeks!
I'm allergic to oranges. Not just the fruit, but the zest. Ack. I smell an orange and peg it in the other direction. Feels like my brain is going to explode if I don't.
Interesting injuries? Well, my knees are covered in scars. When I was about 5 or 6 the coolest game in the playground was to all hold onto a skipping rope and run like mad after the girl girl in front, who was in turn lead by the leader who would zig zag about at random moments.
You can see where this is going can't you?
I lost my footing and was dragged across the tarmac. My knees and left elbow were skinned to the bone. I had to go to the Drs every day for 2 weeks to have my dressings changed. :)
Well Im allergic to strawberries. I break out in hives and swell up (like I need to get fatter sigh). I was able to eat strawberries until I was around 15 then all of a sudden everything would itch and swell up. Nothing like not being able to bend fingers or put on shoes.
Sooo by association it seems all desserts on the planet are made with strawberries not to mention all fruit cups lol. On a good note Im not alone on this, my whole immediate family cant eat strawberries either LOL
Interesting injuries...
I once managed to anger a hive of bees and a nest of wasps at the same time. This involved throwing a rope off of a blacony into some trees, dropping the rope, and then going down to retrieve it. I was stung over a hundred times. The swelling was so bad that it took several days before I could use the fingers on my right hand. It was as if I'd become a balloon person.
My mom bought me a year's best collection of DC Comics (the tiny little graphic novels they used to do) and one of the stories in the collection was "The Anatomy Lesson" by Alan Moore from issue 21 of the Swamp Thing. I read that story over and over again. It was the first time I'd read a comic book with that level of intelligence applied to the story/writing.
For those of you not familiar with the story, it's the issue where Swamp Things finds out that he is not Alec Holland, he is simply a plant that thinks it is Alec Holland. It blew my mind and opened DC to more mature title and concepts like Neil Gaiman's Sandman and the Vertigo line.
Back to the injuries...
I have a scar on my palm from being pushed off a BMX track as well as some scarred knees from skateboarding and (in one instance) pole vaulting out of a tree. Don't ask me what I was thinking on that one, though I will say that it was quite fun the first few times. The enjoyment factor diminished when the pole broke and gravity seized its opportunity for revenge.
The closest that I ever came to dying, however, was when I was about three or four and I ate a jar of mentholatum. It would have likely killed me, except that I also drank an entire bottle of peragoric. According to the doctor, the two substances counteracted each other leaving me sick and sleepy, but alive.
Did I mention that I also got Lyme Disease? That was a close call, too, because it went undiagnosed for several months. I eventually wound up in the ER where a visiting physician from Korea diagnosed it in roughly thirty seconds. As it turn out, Lyme Disease was one of his specialities. If he hadn't "just happened to be visiting" then things could have gotten much worse.
Hey, thanks Bee Sting Cure! Who knew you were out there, wow!
Jeremy, I LOVE that Swamp Thing story. I'm a huge fan of Moore, of course, but his SW run was, I think, my absolute favorite of everything he's done.
Food allergies suck huh? I'm allergic to peppers. Not pepper like the spice, but the vegetable. You'd be amazed at how many foods contain peppers. And I'm not swelling-up aleergic either; I'm, ah, violently, technicolor allergic. It's really awful.
I'm hideously allergic to the bite or sting of anything with more than four legs. Spiders, fleas, whatever -- the bites turn red and swell up and the itching is pure torture. I'll scratch a bug bite until it bleeds because the pain is better than the itch. :P
A flea bite I scratched ended up infected once. I delayed going to the doctor because I had no insurance, but finally when I was nauseated and feverish, I had my mom take me. I ended up in bed on antibiotics, and Mom and some friends had to douse the yard with malathion and scrub down the house and get the dogs on the new (at the time) Program. It did work, but it was close. A friend of mine who's a nurse said that if I'd waited another day or so, I'd probably have ended up in the hospital in IV antibiotics.
At least I know what an infected wound looks and feels like, albeit a small one. And for the record, I never started babbling Key Plot-Related Secrets in my sleep. [grin]
Angie