When I talked about Murphy a few days ago one of the things I bored you with was the old bass boat.  I brought her home Thursday, the poor old thing didn’t even know we had moved to Norman she wanted to make a left turn in Tecumseh.

When we got home I parked her in front of the garage, it is a little cooler outside than in right now and I have to hook a water hose to it to test it and that water makes a heck of a mess in the garage, besides I have way too much “stuff’ in the way to get her in there anyway.  If I’m not through by winter I may take a day off and rearrange the garage.

I parked as close as I could to my workbench, toolbox, air compressor and a wasp nest.  I didn’t know about the wasp nest until the next day.

I have never been allergic to wasp stings, I have considered them more of a nuisance than a problem, Sharyl was very allergic to them and one of my brothers is.  One of them got me twice Friday, on my left wrist and a finger on my right hand.  The finger swelled a little but I had to look close to see where the sting was on the wrist.  I got my wasp spray and reduced the population by a handful, and continued to twist some wrenches.  The nest is in an inaccessible cavity under the eve of the house.

The shade is better later in the day so after loafing most of the day Saturday, about 7:30 I was playing with the baby some more.  This time the stupid wasp stung my left ear lobe; it hurt and really made me mad. I got my can of stuff and made war on the wasps until I felt like we were even. When I settled down it occurred to me my ear was hurting bad.

I came in and took 75mg Benadryl and put some Benadryl gel on the sting.  The thing continued to hurt and actually started to swell pretty bad and pretty fast.  I applied an ice pack.  I have a lot of those in the freezer.  We used them by the numbers when Sharyl was real sick and although I have never been allergic to wasp I am allergic to some meds and foods that can result in significant swelling usually of the face or mouth/tongue. I use Benadryl and ice when that happens. I may have blogged about that previously, if not I will one day because it is kind of an interesting story.

The thing was hurting bad enough and swelling fast enough that I got a little concerned, I thought it would stop but I didn’t know it would, that is one of many disadvantages to living alone.  I would have waited a while before I made the decision to seek medical attention if someone, especially someone named Sharyl would have been here. Lori was home and knew what I was doing, I’m proud one of us knew.

I arrived at the minor emergency clinic about 8:20, about 20 minutes after they closed.  My next stop was the ER at Norman Regional.  I knew where that was, the last time I was there was in September 2011,a couple days before we made the Hospice decision.  I was out of town and wasn’t there for Conner on March 2^nd 2012.  It brought back a lot of memories, none of them pleasant.

The place was extremely calm for an ER on Saturday night.  It only took about 15 minutes to process and get to a room.  I think the swelling had started to stabilize, maybe I just felt better because I had some help.  They complimented me for taking the Benadryl; one of them said, “I sure hope you didn’t drive after taking that much Benadryl”.  I didn’t want to upset her so I just didn’t respond.

Hospitals have gone high tech (kinda like the rest of the world) with their record keeping and admission procedure.  I was in bed with an IV in one arm and some other apparatus on the other when the young lady rolled the computer in to get all the necessary information.  I was a patient there a little over 5 years ago with a minor heart issue; they still had me in the computer.  She was verifying the data, not much had changed, I was mostly just giving “yes” answers.  Then out of the clear blue she asked the routine question “Are you still married to Sharyl?”  It was certainly a legitimate question and I’m sure one she was expecting my “yes” answer.  I think it may have been the first time I have been asked that.  I was actually impressed with the way I handled it, at least I thought I did good.

They ran some Prednisone and Pepcid AC in on top of my Benadryl.  Spellchecker doesn’t know about prednisone or pepcid.  The swelling gradually started down; they kept me an extra hour or so to make sure the Pepcid didn’t aggravate my other allergy.

I got out of the place just as they were shooting fireworks at the end of the benefit concert; I beat most of the 65,000 folks out of town.

She gave me a couple scrips for more Pepcid and Prednisone and gave me the green light to take a bunch of Benadryl.  The ear is a little touchy today, other than that I am back to normal.  I know: normal and Dave in the same sentence just doesn’t sound right.

I relived a lot of things during that 2 hours or so I was there.  Most of the time I was in that little room alone.  I probably needed to do that, just another part of the process.

I probably didn’t need to go to the ER, but it broke the monotony of another routine Saturday night at home.

Keep me in your prayers.

Good Night and God Bless.

Dave