I was out beside our house picking up sticks so I could mow. My dog Aslan was about five feet away in the grass and I was walking towards him when he started dancing and whining and snapping. My other dog tucked her tail and ran to the house. I saw the bees swarming around Aslan and yelled for him to "go home." He had about four stings, one above his eye, one on his stomach and one behind each front leg. He's fine, I gave him a benadryl and he is a bit loopy, keeping him from being as stressed as he was when it first happened. He's gotten stung before, so I knew he wasn't allergic, but getting stung several times can trigger a reaction even in a non-allergic animal or person.
His stumbling and stupidity may have saved my life. I'm allergic to bees and I was not carrying my epipen because all I was doing was walking in the yard. If I'd gotten stung four or five times, I might not have been able to reach the house to get my epipen. There was a Highway Patrol officer this week who died after being stung once by a yellow jacket in his office. He used two epipens and was at the hospital in 15 minutes and he still died. It really scared me - I mowed the very front part of the lawn, but couldn't bring myself to mow the rest of the top part, even after walking it to make certain there were no nests. I'm not on any antihistamines that would slow the allergic reaction. I've just gotten my eyes done, the vestibulitis disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared and I'm just starting to feel really in shape and healthy. I really don't want to die at this point in my life. I hate that we don't get a choice, and we don't always get to prepare.
My brain has begun obsessing about death this week. Maybe it is the coming of Autumn that does it, and the beginning of the seasonal depression. Certainly the deaths of my father-in-law and my Grandpa earlier this year haven't helped. I've become afraid that B. won't make it home from work, that I'll die in some perverse way and never really get to accomplish the things I think I want. Because we really don't know. We could be perfect drivers with every safety feature available on our car - but if that semi-driver falls asleep and hits us at 65 mph, nothing will save us. I could live my whole life in risk avoidance mode, never going off my property; but then step on a bees nest in my own back yard and die. Maybe that was the point of this little cosmic rude awakening - obsessing about death is useless because it will never happen when you are prepared, and it won't happen the way you fear. When it happens it will probably be unavoidable and thinking and obsessing will do nothing but cause you to live a small, unhappy life.
Friday, August 24, 2007
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