My Allergies

Yesterday, my allergies started to act up. When my allergies get bad, it's out of control. It makes me want to crawl in a hole and die. I took some medicine, and it stopped my nose from running, but now I have a sinus infection. My life is amazing.

Anyhow, as much as allergies suck, I do have a funny story of how I became allergic to bees. It was painful when it happened, but it must be told.

I was stung all the time as a child. I used to catch bees using nothing but empty mayonnaise jars. I don't know why, it was just thrilling to do something that could get me hurt. I was probably stung about 3-4 times each summer.

Disaster struck the summer I was 10 years old. My family moved to Indiana that year. When we first got to our house, I went exploring in the woods and at the bottom of the hill in our yard. I got bored quickly(I've never really had a large attention span), and decided to go into the house.

As I trudged up the hill, I stepped into an abandoned rabbit hole. When I say the hole was abandoned, I mean that a rabbit no longer lived in it. Instead, wasps had decided to make a nest in it. I had stepped right on the nest, and the wasps were pissed. I was swarmed by them and was probably stung around 50-100 times.

I ran into the house screaming. The great thing about wasps is that they don't just sting once like a bee, they can keep biting. They were in my clothes, so my mom had to strip me down to my unders, while my dad hit me to kill the wasps that were still on me. If you've never been hit on a fresh wasp bite, let me tell you how great it feels.

By the time it was over, I was a swollen mess. It took hours for the pain to even begin to subside. Luckily, I didn't have any allergies at that point in time, or I would probably have died. That day overloaded my system, and I developed an allergy to bees as a result.

I've been stung/bit 3 times since then. The first time, I was barefoot outside, and got stung in the side of my right foot. My foot swelled so much that I couldn't wear a shoe on that foot for a week. The second time, I was stung on my right shoulder. I lost all feeling in that arm for an hour or two. There was a welt there for 2 months after it happened, and I still have a scar from it.

The last time I was stung, was last summer. I bee stung me right in my stomach. Nothing happened after though. It was just a normal sting. Maybe I'm overcoming my allergies. I hope so.

I have an appreciation for bees. I'm not scared of them, but I won't move if there is one near me. I've realized it's better to just let them do what they are doing, and you won't get stung. I actually am fascinated when I see them getting pollen from a flower. I'll sit and watch them. I no longer go after them with my mayonnaise jar though. I don't want to tempt fate.