Baby's first wasp sting

[ailbhe]

Linnea was sitting on a bench in the community garden when she started to scream. I got to her, and she was screaming "A BEE STUNG MY EYE! MY EYE! MY EYE!" and panicking and hitting out at me. I talked to her and held her hands and let her hit me for a bit, and she calmed down enough to answer questions - "Did a bee sting our eye?" "No, my eyelid," which was helpful.

I carried her across the garden and sat her on a picnic table and tried to look. Someone handed me some antihistamine cream. I found the sting area - it looked like she'd been stung on her cheekbone, near her eye, and clawed a lump of skin off in scratching the sting out. There was a rough swelling area around it. When I persuaded her that the cream was not going in her eye, or on her eye, she allowed me to put it on her cheek.

Turns out a lot of what was wrong was fear of pain like she had when she got pepper in her eyes last week. Pain and not being able to see - not Linnea's favourite things.

I carried her home, most of the way, using the mei tai in a hip carry. She kept acting like she was falling asleep. I was a bit worried in case sudden falling asleep was a bad sign but she recovered, so I think it was the short-term exhaustion from pain and fear, not so much a physical reaction to the sting.

Much later, she found Little House in the Big Woods and spent a long time looking at the pages around where Charley gets into a yellow jacket's nest. Then she tried to explain to me that a bee sting is worse than a wasp sting because with a wasp sting you get better quickly but with a bee sting it takes a long time and you are very sick.

That was easier than the conversation we had earlier about absolute nothingness and the extent of the universe.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I, as a grownup, have problems with bee stings, wasp stings, AND nihilism and consideration of the vastness of the universe.

[ailbhe]

"It would all be brown dirt, or grey dust, like the moon."

"But if there was nothing, there wouldn't be dirt either."

"Ooh."

"That's hard to imagine, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Like outside the whole universe!"

I love my life.

[rosefox]

I was stung by a wasp when I was about her age. I don't remember it well, mostly because that's the trip where I also nearly drowned, but I remember screaming from the pain and then screaming more when my mother put ice on it to bring the swelling down. I'm very glad Linnea recovered quickly and found a book that helped her deal with it.

[ailbhe]

I was stung by a bee when she was in utero and it was really, really painful. I took oral antihistamine immediately. I don't remember any other stings from bees or wasps, though lots of horseflies and things.

Emer has been burned - well, probably not, but at risk of it - a few times, and the part she hates most is the cold water from the kitchen tap.

I think Linnea may have recovered quickly because of clawing the stung part out of her face. It's a nasty chunk she's missing.

[rosefox]

Poor kid. I hope she heals up quickly.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

Cool, non-hurty water works just as well. Better, in fact, because you can hold your burn under it for longer. As long as it's cool to the touch, it will work.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

(For the incident where I poured a kettle full of freshly boiled water down my whole arm, I used the shower as my source of coolth, for a full fifteen minutes (which I could not have done with ice cold water). It worked amazingly well and the arm was reddish and slightly sore for one night.)

[haggis.livejournal.com]

That's useful to know, thank you!

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I hope you never need the information, or at least not as badly as I did. :0) Even though I turned out fine, I still remember the absolute shock and dread as I realised what I'd just done.

I was wearing a shirt and took the time to take it off to bare my arm, something my spouse was trying to prevent me doing, but it was the right thing to do, I think. I don't know what official advice is, but it made sense to remove the 'sponge full of hot water' encasing my arm before I cooled it. If it had been stuck to my skin, I wouldn't have done.

[ailbhe]

The usual advice is to do that after you've got the cold water on it - but if you have someone else available to help turn on the tap, then taking the time while that's happening would be the right thing, I think.

[taimatsu]

When I scalded myself very badly all over my torso, a couple of years ago, I had to get friends to come over to talk to me so I could manage to stay in the bath full of cold water, otherwise I would have totally failed to cope with being that freezing (it was February and the middle of the night). Thank goodness I had very nearby friends who had also already seen me naked :)

The scald was really very bad and I was in bandages for at least two weeks. :/

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

My Little Three who is the same age as Linnea was talking to me today about the time last summer when she was stung by a wasp right on the edge of her mouth when we were camping. She remembers it vividly. Thinking about it, all three of my children had been stung by wasps by the time they were six (L3 isn't six yet of course), whereas I was stung for the first time at the grand old age of 35!

Glad Linnea is ok and didn't have a nasty reaction. Horrible shock for her though, especially if she had already had an eye incident recently!

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

My first sting (wasp or hornet) was at the age of about ten, and it was right on the tender bit of the end of my nose. I had never experienced anything like that burning indignity. And then afterwards my nose ran and ran. And this was at the cottage, so there were no ice cubes.

[rpdom.livejournal.com]

Ack, what a horrible experience for you both!

I was stung a few times as a child, and hated it. However the most vivid and frightening memory I have is from when I was about 4 or 5 and my grandparents took us to Southend. We sat in the cliff top gardens, eating jam sandwiches - in the middle of a swarm of wasps! There were thousands of them and they kept going for the sandwiches as we ate them. Gah! It still makes me shiver to think about it.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Poor Linnea! I remember treading on a bee which then stung my foot in my grandparents' garden, but once it had stopped hurting I kept crying because I thought my grandad would be angry I trod on his bee.

bee stings cure

[(Anonymous)]

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[moustachios.livejournal.com]

Aww, poor thing. Hope she heals up soon.

I've never had a bee sting, but I did unwittingly sit on a tire swing that had a wasp's nest in it. They were Not Amused, and I remember limping in tears towards my grandmother, surrounded by an angry swarm, while the dog growled and snapped at them.

[merryhouse.livejournal.com]

Christopher stood on a bee in his grandparents' garden once. While he was sitting on the toilet calming down a little I heard him say tearfully "I wish I was a baby" which sent me into paroxysms of guilt in case he felt I was neglecting him for his 5monthold brother.

Turned out that it was "because they get carried everywhere" so since Mike had heroically taken Oliver from me I said I'd carry him until his foot was better.