Sting, stang, STUNG?

"How did I get stung again by one of those stupid wasps?" I thought last Sunday afternoon....but it wasn't a wasp when I looked down. It was a scorpion!!!!?  Oh, ICK.  Now, this is a bug of a different color!

I was cleaning the back porch for the annual hanging of the hummingbird feeders.  I wanted it clean so I'd get a 100 when the hummingbird health department came by for the inspection.  There were lots of leaves and cat hair...the table was dusty.....I was sweeping and really making progress when I stepped on a pile of leaves.  I like my hummingbirds happy....

Ouch.  Oh, OUCH!

Dang it!
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"Bill!"

Bill and I discuss every family emergency like it's happening to someone else.  "Hey, Bill, I stepped on a scorpion and it stung me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep.  I saw it.  I killed it."

"Well, what do we do, Dr. Weaver?"  (He always elevates me to a medical doctor whenever something happens.)

I had no idea.

We tried calling our regular doctor.

Not home.

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SOOOOOOOO....we called "Ask a Nurse."

"You've been stung by a what?"......she ramped it up from 0-60 pretty darn fast.  She wasn't comforting.

The panic was thick in her voice. "Is your throat swelling shut?  Is your tongue thick?"

At this point I wanted to say, "Nahhhh, asfkdlj;aefroietroah theowitoisfaoefeklah."  She wasn't the type to joke around though.  She was hyperventilating.

So I said, "No."

"Are you allergic to anything?" She was still pretty excited.

"Yep, demerol."

"YOU must go to an urgent care center or an Emergency Room....Now!  Put ice on your foot."  (She obviously had not attended the class on "Don't let the patient hear the panic in your voice "....this lady was panting and I could hear the fear in her voice.)

"Okey-dokey," I said.

Bill had been standing there listening.  "Let's go."

"No, I need a little make-up and a fresh shirt."

We were off.  I wasn't going all sweaty looking. 

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 Coliseum ER

"We don't get many scorpion stings.  We'll fast track you."

Zip zip zip.

In a room.
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The PA said that scorpions in Georgia aren't poisonous.

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My doctor called later in the week to see how I was.

"Fine. No problems."

"I had forgotten that we had scorpions in Georgia," he stated.  "But the last scorpion bite was Mike.  It was the summer he and Alec were tearing down that building for me.  Mike was playing with the scorpion and the it stung him."

That was the earlier in the summer before he was killed....ten years ago.  August 16, 2003.

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I keep experiencing the circle of life.  Say what you will, but that bite was like Mike sending me a sign that he was there with me.  Call me silly, but my children wouldn't let their momma worry.  They know not a day goes by without me thinking about them.  I pick up the phone and tell Molly and Dan I love them.

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Or a child sends a scorpion bite to his momma to tell her he misses and loves her.