So there I was… really gung ho about clearing up the garden. Yesterdays task was to trim the Jasmine and get it under control so it stops attempting to strangle us as we pass it. I was merrily chopping away at it with a pair of shears… when I got stung by a paper wasp defending it’s nest! Ouch!
After leaping about I went inside, got some ‘Stingose’, sprayed it orund my hand and went back to work muttering to myelf. Ten minutes later I get stung *again* by a different wasp… the first one had died in a cloud of fly spray.
Back in for more Stingose…and I gve up. It’s time again for picking up the eldest kid. As I leave I tell the old man… my back feels really itchy… maybe an ant crawled up my trousers… well… it happens. 😀
Up towards the school I drive… getting itchier all the time and my arms are coming up in huge welts. I get to the school and my heart is now pounding and I’m feeling woozy. Not to worry I say to myself… I’ll get home and take an antihistamine… that’ll sort me out..
Five minutes later I’m SMS’ing the wife telling her I feel dire… then I ring the old man who suggests I visit the doc on the way home… just in case.
The daughter arrives… and I’m falling apart. Somehow I drive the 15 mins back towards home. We make it to the doctors with her chatting away in the back keeping me awake. I get inside the docs… and collapse on the counter keeping just enough wits about me to tell them I had been stung twice and needed a little help.
Not sure of the time scale here… but I think the recepionist rushes of for the doc who immediately (it seems) jabs an adrenalin shot into me. By now my insides feel as it they are a towel being wrung out by someone and I’m tied in knots. With what’s left of my mind I’m saying goodbye to the world and feeling bad that I’m dropping dead in front of my 10 year old daughter.
The adrenaline does its job and my mind starts to clear a little… I start to come back from the black… ten mins later I get a shot of hydrocortisone… and I begin to think I might live after all (which of course I did or I’d not be here).
I recall saying thank’s to the doctor for seeing me so quickly… she said “Thanks for saving your life you mean?”… “That too!” says I. 😀
From the docs to the chemist… from the chemist home… collapse in a chair in the dark… then go to bed and hardly moved all night. Left everyone to their own devices. I was still in shock, feeling dreadful and realising just *how* close I was to dying.
This morning I’m still woozy. My head is thumping and my hands are still swollen. All else seems ok as far as I can tell. The lumps on my arms have gone, and me head is fairly clear… as clear as ever it was I suppose… but I was *very, very* lucky. For example, had my father not suggested going to the docs I might well have gone straight home… and that would have been fatal… literally.
Still, all’s well that ends well. I think on the basis of this I might go ask the doctor for a prescriotion for an epipen so that in the unlikely event of this recurring I’d be able to get help until I reach hospital.
I’ve no idea *why* this allergy kicked in now… nothing like this has happened before… but I’m damn sure I hope it never does again! Having said that… if you *have* to go (as we all must eventually) then this was a remarkably quick and painless way to go so I’m not knocking it too hard 😀
Hey… maybe *now* is the time to go buy a lottery ticket?
The Eclectic Interweb 
Man Oh Man!!
Twas ever thus, I get the ‘flu, heart palpitations and fainting, so what does the Welsh Dog do? Goes in to Anaphylactic Shock.
OneUpManship at its best, played by a True Master!
Seriously though, glad to hear you are ok. What with the Cane Toads and the spiders in the dunny, life gets kind of risky in paradise!
Love from the Phantom….. I’m just off for a puff on me inhaler…
Thank goodness dad told you to go to the doctors and thank goodness you are ok. If I ever had thoughts of coming out there to live, they have gone completely – enough coping with the spiders over there, not frightened of them over here.
Have had a few wasp stings over here but like you have never had a reaction.
Mr vintagechic said maybe you are not allergic to paper wasp stings but allergic to vast quantities of inhaled Stingose.
The Phantom is much more inventive with his culinary arts than I… but my ailments seem to be more exotic. In this case I’d have been more than happy to let him win 🙂
I’ve never had a reaction like that before… and hope never to again! Currently still very woozy but when I’m feeling better I’ll go back to the docs and get a referral to an allergy specialist to check exactly what’s what.
I’ll also get a prescription for an Epipen… just in case!!
One thing I didn’t mention in the story was that one of the last thoughts passing through my mind as I was slipping into oblivion was that now I’d never know what happened to Harry Potter. I think I must be obsesed… or something. 😀
Just to update things… I hve a friend here who’s a nurse and tells me that now I’m ‘sensitized’ the next attack could take as little as *three minutes* and it’d be ‘Goodnight Irene”. Glad she told me that… not 🙂
I’ll call the docs when I get back from taking the kids to school.