Moe Skeeter Bytes
Cute title huh? If you said that last night, I probably wouldn’t have smiled at that remark. Here is the scoop on what happened to me.
July 4 – I was out with my friend at a BBQ in the suburbs. They have a beautiful yard with a pond/lake view – but lots of mosquitoes. Guess who was too proud to put on bug spray? Me! I didn’t put any out because I didn’t want to touch any chemicals. Needless to say, I went home itchy.
July 5 – My index finger and two knuckles swelled up. It looked like my finger was extra bionic and strong, but really – I could hardly bend it. I spent half of the day trying not to scratch *To scratch or not to scratch, that was the question* I was so uncomfortable because the itching was very intense and because my muscle started to ache in my wrist. But, I put on the topical Benadryl and went to bed, hoping to sleep off the itchies and the pain.
July 6 – 12:23 a.m. I couldn’t sleep because the pain was really getting to me. I was beginning to wonder what bit me (6 or 8 legs?)and why I was too prideful to go to Northwestern U Hospital emergency room. I finally swallowed my pride and drove to NU Hospital.
12:30 a.m. – Arrived at NU Hospital. Dealt with some annoying security guards and a smelly fellow patient (boy, he stank so bad, he could have started a small country called Stankonia) and a woman complaining about the ER not having plates to put her unhealthy food on.
12:40 – A nurse called me into an examing room. I had one intern (probably, he said he was the lowest on the “totem pole”) and then one more experienced resident and probably his supervisor come in to take a look. They perscribed Prednisone and gave me a little pill Benadryl. I was very relieved to have gotten a positive diagnosis and not something like “Uh, you should have come in way earlier because you were bitten by a recluse/black widow spider.”
2:30 – I got home and went back to bed.
I have to work very late tonight, so I am glad, in a way that this drama happened overnight last night and not on a day when I have to come in early.
Right now, I feel fine, but now I am definitely hoping that I will be more watchful of these things because it could have been a lot more serious. I am very allergic to mosquito bites and I should have taken the right precautions and I failed.
So what is the moral of the story? Swallow your pride and use bug spray. Check yourself for ticks when you enjoy the outdoors. Go see a doctor if there is really big swelling and you are sore and uncomfortable because if it was dark, you probably couldn’t tell what bit you and it is hard to self-diagnose what you have been bitten with unless if you have done it several times.
