stinger

last saturday i rode, but my legs felt bad. sunday i was going to ride, but the rain came and my legs felt bed, so i spent the day on the sofa, watching olympics and napping.

monday morning i woke up strangely lame in my left ankle. it's not tendinitis, because there's no tendon there. full range of motion, but hurts in some directions. hurts to bear weight in some positions. hurts to walk, hurts nearly not at all to ride.

so i rode monday afternoon. it was a good ride. my legs felt really good, but i didn't want to go more than three laps (15 k) so i didn't tank for tuesday's run.

back up in timeline.

saturday on the trail i found a new nest of bees, or some ground dwelling wasp, or whatever. i wasn't prepared to identify them conclusively and although they looked like a thing that might be sting-y, i was not prepared to test that empirically.

but i went into the house and drew a map so they could exterminate, because one thing they do not want is a nest of bees on the racecourse.

monday the bees appeared to be gone.

tuesday i came early to ride my bike because with my foot all hurty and everything i knew i wasn't going far in the run and didn't want to give up a whole day of exercise and i was sitting there talking to jim and he said they hadn't been able to find any bees and right then is when the first runners came back reporting multiple stings on the course so after the runners were done i took some flags from the barn and went out to mark the nest.

and got stung.

twice.

it is now a full day later and i am apparently in the middle of what we'll call a moderate alleregic reaction.

overnight and for most of the day i've had it on ice, but even under the ice pack my arm is pretty hot. when i take the ice packs off the swelling increases, along with the pain.

i raced tonight, but halfway through the lap i stopped feeling my left hand, presumably on account of the swelling.

it's back under ice.

maybe i should have been scared-er while i was tossing and turning and not sleeping last night. i get a weird full-body uncomfortableness that i can't quite place but in retrospect i've felt a lot like that every time i'm having a bad reaction.

by "bad reaction", i mean that once i required ambulance transport. twice i might have required ambulance transport, but i was already in a hospital, so no point in rolling truck.

in a few minutes i'll toss back some more benadryl and take my cooler of ice packs up to bed.

i know at least one of you will wonder if i have an epipen.

yes, i do. if i had been wheezy or my lips had been numb, i would have used it.

ice and benadryl seem to have a lid on it. the pain and heat has not left the arm and is still mostly in the forearm. since the ice is back on it the swelling is down some and i can feel my left hand again.