A little scare and post vacation delay from work

Last Sunday, right after we got back in from our vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, I decided that I would go ahead and weed and clean up the flowerbeds before I had to go back to work. I wore my new gardening gloves the whole time that I was pulling weeds and when I was done Colt was washing my car so I decided I would go ahead and trim some of the shrubs. I was almost done so I pulled off my gloves and almost as soon as I did, I got stung/bit! It just stung a little and I didn't even look to see what it was. It happened at around 11 and I didn't start swelling or anything so I went on with my day and didn't even really think about it. That night it started hurting a little more and then by about 9 my finger was swelling. During the night I started icing it as it got bigger and by morning my hand was swollen.

This is what it looked like Monday morning before work

I made an appointment at the doctor downstairs at work at 8:30 that morning. She gave me a steriod shot and prescribed an antibiotic for possible infection and I went back to work. While I was working, rather than getting better, my hand starting getting bigger and I started getting little blisters and red splotches on my finger.

Eventually it looked like my finger was turning a little purple. I sent Colt a pic and he was like come and get me and we are going to the emergency room.

And this is what it looked like when I was leaving work

And a couple hours later when we were still in the ER

Of course the whole time on the way to the hospital and at the hospital, I am looking up worst case scenarios of all different sorts of bites! Once in the ER, they put an IV in me and started meds. They decided to admit me because they were worried about tissue damage and circulation to the finger. The doctor in the ER thought that it might possibly be a baby spider that bit me due to the fact that my hand was getting worse so fast. All the nurses thought that it was definitely a spider bite and possibly a brown recluse from the looks of my finger and due to the fact that it took me 8 or 9 hours for my to react to the sting.

Dede, David, Davallen, and my parents all came up to the hospital and Colt stayed the night with me at the hospital.

Pics from Monday night before bed.. and while I was reading Harry Potter

 

All night long I was constantly on steroids, antibiotic, saline, benadryl and ibuprofen. By morning, my whole mouth tasted like medicine.

My hubby Tuesday morning

He didn't get a blanket or anything probably until around 4 that morning. Neither one of us got much sleep.

By morning, the swelling had started to go down and I was getting more color back in my finger. The only thing worse was just a couple more little blisters. 

Later in the morning on Tuesday, Colt went home for a little while to shower and get a few things and brought me back a cookie dough blizzard from DQ (my fav) to go with my hospital cafeteria lunch.

They continued my meds all day and the doctor didn't do her rounds until evening so it was just a waiting game to see if I could go home. Around 4, the doctor came and said that I could leave and also said that it was almost definitely a spider. However, when we got home, I showed Colt exactly where in the yard I got stung and he found some kind of a wasp nest right in the shrub that I got bit, so we think that evidently I am just HIGHLY allergic to that particular type of wasp.

I went ahead and stayed home from work the next day and Colt stayed with me. Good thing I did too because all I did was SLEEP from the Benadryl! By Thursday, almost all of the swelling was gone other than itching like crazy it was almost back to normal. 

I definitely will not be doing our flowerbeds for a little while!

Thanks to everyone for all your thoughts.

Also, thanks to David and to my work for the beautiful flowers.