It's been a lovely early summer here; warm, sunny days, full of gentle breezes and general good cheer. I'd taken Wednesday off to put in some beekeeping time, and as hoped, it turned out to be a beautiful day. After a double shift in the beeyard, I had taken off my gloves and was wrapping up the the last of my notes when a bee decided she needed to make the ultimate sacrifice and stung me on my finger. I flicked the stinger out right away, briefly mourned for the bee, and carried on with my day.
Almost exactly 24 hours later I was sitting in the St. Michael's emergency room, getting a good dose of antibiotics through an IV. During those 24 hours I had observed, first-hand, the development of a vigorous bacterial infection. Fascinating! Also scary. It turns out that out of all of the bacteria that's crawling all over everything and everyone all the time, every once in a while one will be in exactly the right place at the right time,and unleash a very localized perfect shitstorm, featuring swelling! incessant itchiness! painful, violent throbbing and frightening pink steaks forming under the skin!
After a second round of IV antibiotics things are definitely looking better, but I'm still on Benadyl and antibiotics for a while and this ridiculously puffy cartoon hand could be around for several days still.
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