The Attack

Last night, as we were playing in the backyard with the boys and Scott's dad, Tony, we were attacked by wasps out of nowhere. Everyone was down in the grass, except me, and I was standing right on the deck watching the boys play baseball. All of a sudden, it felt like a knife just stabbed my hand, and I just started screaming, holding my hand, and yelling, "Oh my gosh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!" As the others are coming over to see me, Scott starts yelling things that I won't write on the blog and ripping off his shirt. Amongst the madness, Tyler starts crying and Carter starts running after Scott. I get myself together and grab the kids to get inside, and Scott runs all the way around the house and rings the front doorbell to try to get inside. After our nerves are a bit calmed, we realize that I have one wasp sting on my hand, and Scott has one on his arm and three on his stomach. I'm still complaining how mine hurts, but Scott already seems to be better... making me think that I'm pretty much a big baby. HOWEVER...by bed time last night, Scott's were nearly gone and not noticeable, while my whole hand began to turn red and swell. The sore hand woke me up several times last night, and after Ibuprofen and Benadryl, the swelling and pain continues and is worsening today. Clearly, I know I'm overreacting, but I'm beginning to have visions of hospital trips and amputation in my head. Please pray for me and my nasty looking hand....which I'm hoping to be able to post pictures of when Scott gets home...I'm no good at pushing the shutter button with my left hand.

UPDATE: Here are my hands, as of 4:00 on Tuesday... about 20 hours after the wasp attack. Notice the hand on the left (my right hand) and how it is red and swollen. It's worse in real life... I promise.

Here's Scott gearing up to go kill wasps and knock down nests. Let's hope this works.

NEW UPDATE: On Wednesday morning, my hand was continuing to get worse and worse. More redness and more swelling, even after lots of Benadryl and Ibuprofen. At this point, I decided to go to the Urgent Care. I felt that my situation was out of my radiologist husband and radiologist father-in-law's area of expertise...though, I'm pretty sure that the Urgent Care doctor really didn't know any more. Here are pictures I took of my hands while I was waiting to see the doctor:

My normal left hand:

My swollen right hand:

To make a long story short, the doctor thought that I had a bad hand infection, that resulted from the wasp sting. He put me on 2 rigorous doses of antibiotics, and gave me a brace to hold my hand still (which I didn't even really use and later got a $75 bill for!). The redness and swelling continued to get worse that day and night... Scott even had to stay home from work, because I literally couldn't even open the kids' sippy cups. Thankfully, by the next afternoon, the swelling and redness began to go down. It wasn't until almost a week later that my hand felt totally normal! It is still a debate as to whether or not I had an allergic reaction to the wasp sting or whether I got an infection as a result of it. We may never know, but boy am I glad to have all of this behind me!