Bee Stings, a Broken Toe, a Broken Arm, and a Busted Forehead

By

J.P. Nix

          Here’s what happened.  I was off from work on Wednesday, and as part of my usual routine in midweek I busied myself cleaning the house and doing laundry.  Afterward, my mother-in-law Mary and I went to visit my parents in Snellville which is a little over 8 miles from where we live in Lawrenceville. My Dad had fallen the previous day, and had busted his forehead and at his age of 89, earned him a trip to the hospital.

 Since Nancy was still at work when we got back home, I decide to do a quick workout.  After my workout, I was all sweaty and I thought that since I had to work this coming Sunday, I would cut the grass, and get that chore out of the way.  I would be off Saturday and would rather spend the day with my wife than doing stuff I could get out of the way earlier in the week. 

            It was 3:00 before I got started cutting in the backyard.  The day was hot and dry.  I usually cut grass in the morning, but the procrastination in me along with the things I had done earlier in the day made me late in getting started.  I had it almost finished, just a few more turns around the Mimosa tree and I would have been finished with the backyard.  However, I soon discovered a yellow-jacket bee hive nestle somewhere around the tree.  Eek!

            A bee had landed on left wrist and started stinging me. 

            “Go on you lousy bee!” I said as I bushed him with my right hand.  No sooner than this happened when I got stung on my leg.  I was wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt.  I slapped my leg, but then I kept getting stung.   I never saw the hive, but all of a sudden I saw five or six bees buzzing around me.  One stung my right ear.          

            I knew that I had to get away from the bees, and so as quickly as I could, I ran to around the corner of the boxwood bushes, and up on the deck and stood at the back door.  The bees were still around me.  I brushed away a few more, and thought the only way to keep them off of me was to go inside. 

            As quickly as I could, I opened the door, stepped in, and pulled the door shut.  I looked out the glass door and saw the bees buzzing.  I felt like I was still getting stung on my legs and now on my chest. 

            I pulled my up my t-shirt and the bottom of my gym shorts up and saw bees crawling on me and stinging me. When I started yelling, my mother-in-law came into the dinning room with her left arm in a sling from falling and breaking it earlier in the week.  She was standing only a few feet from where I was twisting my body trying to get the bees off me. 

            “Mary!” I yelled.  “Get back! GD bees are in the house!”

            The bees I successfully knocked off of me, and were now buzzing the inside of the glass door trying to get out.  No such luck for them.  I grabbed a placemat off the table and begin swatting and killing them.  Next, I ran down stairs and pulled everything off I was wearing to make sure all the bees were gone.

            After I checked my clothes, I put them back on.  I still needed to cut the front yard. 

            Oh no!  My lawnmower was out at the hive where all the action started.  I look out the window.  I didn’t see any buzzing, but I knew they were there probably waiting to ambush me once I stepped outside.  I would have to have a weapon of some sort.  I looked around the area and saw the only the only thing that I thought would keep them off of me.  I grabbed my leaf blower, flipped the on switch, opened the door, and kept my eyes peered for any moment.  Every step I made I would twist the blower in a different direction.  Once I got to the lawnmower, I steadied the blower in one as the other moved the mower away from the hive.

            Whew!  I rescued the mower without getting stung again.  Actually I didn’t see anything move, but something told me that they were there probably trying to regroup which I why I was able to get away without any more stings.

            I put the blower on the ground, and rolled the lawnmower to the front yard, and started cutting it.  No bees.  Look like I was safe. 

            As I cut the grass I begin to feel a sense of accomplishment.  I did all the day’s chores, and a little extra since cutting the grass was not on the agenda.  Faced adversity, but now with only 3 strips of yard to cut I could see the rest of the afternoon and evening going good. 

            Nancy pulled in the driveway at this point as I made a turn to cut the remaining strips and I thought I’d talk to her first.

            “Why are you cutting the grass?”

            “Since the grass needs cutting, I thought I would get it done today, so we could spend our Saturday together instead doing yard work.”

            “Why is your chest all red and swollen?”

            “Oh I ran into a yellow jacket nest, and got stung.”

            “Why are you out here then?  You should be in the house!”

            “Well I’m alright, and I’m not finished.”

            “Leave the yard till this weekend, and go get a shower.”

            “Ten more minutes and I’ll be finished.”            

            “Just hurry.”

            When I finished the cutting, I looked at the driveway which was partially covered with grass clippings.  Ok I thought; it’s no big deal.  I’ll just grab the leaf blower and blow it off. 

            When I started it off, Nancy comes out the back door holding a glass of water, shaking her head at me. 

            “You done enough today,” she said.  “Go get a shower.”

            So I’m standing on the back deck, drinking my water as she starts pulling the garden hose around to the deck when she says to me, “You know John Paul if you wanted to do something outside, you could have watered my flowers.  You know their dying.”

            I must have blinked or something because the next thing I hear is a bang, followed by an ouch where Nancy had hit her foot on something.  “I think I broke my toe!”

            “Sit down and let me see about your foot.”

            “Just go get a shower,” she snapped at me. 

            After being told for the fifth time to go take a shower, I was mad, and marched off to just that.  I guess she didn’t expect to come home to what started off as doing a simple chore was now chaotic at it’s best. 

            The cool water felt good on my body and I really didn’t want to leave it.  I usually take a warm to hot shower except when I’ve worked out in the yard.  My body ached.  Maybe from the bee stings, or maybe from cutting the grass, I really didn’t know.  When I peeled back curtain, in the mirror was my answer.  I had welts all over my body.  I looked like someone had beaten me. 

            As soon as Nancy came in the room and took one look at me, she said, “You’re going to the hospital.”

            “No,” I said.  “I don’t want to go to the hospital.  They’ll just give me Benadryl and send me home.   And I can get Benadryl at the store.”

            “You’re going,” she insisted.  “Get dressed.”

            At the emergency room, I didn’t have to wait long, and they had me in a room with a nurse pumping an IV in me full of some kind of anti bee stinger liquid, and it began to make me very very drowsy.

            The ER was busy that afternoon, and they didn’t have an available room for me lay down.  So for the next hour, I sat in the hallway while the drug seeped into my veins.

            After the swelling had decreased and the red welts has lessoned, they sent me on my way with 2 vials with instructions to jab my thigh with one if I ever got stung again, and then come straight to the hospital. 

            All this happened, and all I wanted to do was to cut grass.

                                                                                       THE END