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Bee Stings - Page 2

© Barbara Hall

So I was the one who went for the drama. I was painting on my back deck when I had a head-on collision with a bumble bee. That's happened before. I swatted it away actually thinking it was a fly and then came the OUCH. Right on the bridge of my nose. I took a slug of Osha root, slapped a Plantain leaf right on it and was back out painting in 10 minutes. Then I realized I could see my cheek. Uh-oh....my eyes were beginning to swell, so I quickly took some homeopathic APIS, which is specific for swelling due to bee stings and started putting ice on it. I looked like some long-lost Eskimo sister of myself. It was pretty awful and I was getting nervous. There is a point where one simply cannot be "doctor" and "patient" at the same time, so I went to waken my partner to keep an eye on me. He told me that all he needed was the word from me and we'd be off to the emergency room. It seemed not to be getting any worse, so I kept the ice on it and had the swelling pretty much down within two hours. This was a face swelling because it was stung. It's a very different feeling from the reaction I have to cats which I know will make me stop breathing.

The next day I didn't seem to be able to do anything but nap... A mere three days later I grab a yarrow stem which is occupied by yet another bumble bee and here we go again, on the side of my index finger. I stop working, I go for the Osha root, put an ice cube on it and wait. It never swelled much at all, but I could feel something working its way up my arm. It was a vague aching, but it truly stopped once it got to my shoulder. OK, cool, the face swells, the finger doesn't.

Two more days hence, I am just walking out of a garden gateway with a bunch of tansy for drying when WHAM I get whacked in the face with another bumblebee and the OUCH is on my cheek. This time I LOST it. Enough is enough, not on the FACE again. By the time I hit the house I was in tears, my hands were shaking, I really didn't think my body could go through this again. I hit it with EVERYTHING. Osha under the tongue, APIS under the tongue, some Motherwort tincture in water to keep me from panicking and ice on the face. This time it never got out of control at all. How's THAT. There was some minor swelling under my eye, but in two hours I was out from under the ice-filled wash cloth and cooking dinner.

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