Nasty, horrible bees

Last Sunday, Angelina stepped on (or at least, disturbed) a bee. The bee, of course, responded as it would and stung her in the ankle. With much terrorized screaming I quickly pulled the stinger out and flicked it away. Apparently not far enough because it landed on my arm and gave me a small reaction....

As for Angelina, some anti-itch stuff seemed to calm her down. We watched it for awhile. No problem.


Last night, Fredo noticed her foot looked swollen in the sock. Now, in the morning I put her socks on and her feet were fine. I did notice later in the day her crocs were tighter than normal, but just figured that was the thicker socks. Well, we took off the sock and see this




Knowing how badly we both react to stings, and given how small her body is, we didn't want to take any chances and took her to the ER. She's got an infection but it appears slight. However they gave her some cortisone cream and some oral antibiotics. These pictures were actually taken tonight, 24 hours later. It looks to have improved somewhat, but I'm not that happy about it....

She's fine. No more fever, and unless you touch her foot, you wouldn't know there was a problem. Which is part of the problem. She needs to keep it elevated to get the swelling down. Now how do you get a very active almost 3 yr old to stay still??? DVDs are working for a little while, but not long. Oh, and ice packs would be good. How does one get an ice pack on a squirming child????

Update: We're now on day 3 since the reaction started, 10 days after the sting. The hives and redness have decreased, but it's still really swollen and itchy and hot. Doesn't look like she has a reaction anywhere else on her body, which is a good sign, though the first day she had some spots on her trunk. Don't think those were hives and they're gone now. She woke today really cranky, which we can't tell if it's pain due to the sting/reaction or just general Angelina crankiness ;)




Update June 29: It's now been just over a week since this reaction started, 2 weeks since the sting. On Thursday it was looking worse: more swollen, more red, and she couldn't walk on it. So we went back to the Swiss ER...at first the nurse suggested she needed IV antibiotics, but I said no way. It wasn't infected, she had no fever, what she really needs is an antihistamine (not available OTC there). The doctor came in and agreed it wasn't likely an infection, just a severe allergic reaction. However she recommended a splint to prevent her from walking on it. It seemed counter-intuitive to me to wrap it up and put an extra weight there, but it did keep her off it for a couple of days, which seemed to help. We returned on Sat for a follow-up and by then it was looking better. Still not very nice, but the swelling had decreased substantially in the leg (still in the foot), and the hives were mostly gone: still red and itchy and blistery, but not so widespread. We returned today to the US, and though it doesn't look pretty, it does look mostly healed. Phew!