Keeping It Together

Bee Sting Danger

My daughter rang today to say that little mister 2yo had been stung by a wasp. My very brave daughter (24yo, mother of the mister 2yo) had dealt with the situation, albeit with a great deal of anxiety on her behalf, since she had a very serious history of bee stings.

She blogged
http://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/954458
(mental not to self - learn WDC links instead of using url's)

Techie daughter said for me to write it like this:
"The Semi-Eventful Wasp Episode" 

IT all began when we had a tree with berries. The berries would ripen and the bees loved the very ripe fluid. They would swarm around all the bunches of berries and drink to their little hearts delight. But, as happens when one gets carried away and drinks fermenting liquids, they got drunk. In their stupor they would fall down on the ground, buzzing around in their drunken stupor. Silly bees didn't they know about hangovers the next day.

Anyway, as kids will do, they ran around the back garden with no shoes. The very talented author above was about 3yo at the time, totally innocent about crawling, biting, flying things, (much like her young 2yo) she ran right through them all. Squashing some and being stung by some. Her very surprised mother also came running outside to find out what all the screaming was about and found a few dozen bees around her, dopey, on the ground and loads more flying around dazed.

I stepped into the group (with shoes on) and picked her up, thus instantly escaping the dangers while shooing the other children into the house. My little darling had bee stings still in her feet. They were scraped aside and first aid was applied.

Yep, she had swollen feet but she got over that in a few days, it wasn’t enough to slow her down as she was still running around – inside.

That was late in the afternoon and by the time we had attended to her two little feet it was getting dark. The next morning all the bees were gone except for the squashed, dead ones. But we had the same occurrence the next afternoon with the bees but we watched them from inside the window on this occasion.

She only had a local reaction but there were many stings. The next time she got stung was some time later. Only one little sting but she got so swollen up I took her to the doctor. This one was also only a local reaction but the swelling was quite extensive.

The next time was much the same except she showed welts on other parts of her body as well. Up to the doctor again. This time they were very much more concerned and put her into the treatment room and laid her down (she was a little wheezy, too). We were told to keep a packet of anti-histamines around and if she gets another bee sting to give her one immediately and then get to medical help. (What makes them think she will get stung again?)

It was about this time that I did a “first aide” course. That was when I found out what was actually going on and how dangerous it was for her, that was when I found out that a bee sting could be life threatening.

Next time she got stung she was at school, I got a phone call, I rang the local GP to let them know I was on my way but they said that they had no doctor at the surgery and that I should go to the ER, so I dashed up to the school while grabbing the anti-histamines. We had welts and wheezes again. Each time the reaction became more and more serious.

Knowing more than I did the previous time I was a wreck. Daughter recovered with treatment of adrenalin this time and mother was a basket case.

Each time after that her reaction was just as serious. The doctor recommended a course of desensitisation injections. Each of those desensitisation injections she also needed adrenalin.

Added to this SHE carried around the anti-histamine tablets with her, in school bag. She needed a doctor’s letter with them in order to take them to school, if you please.

No kids were allowed to carry drugs in school (as was the drug policy at the time) we had to argue with the school, since they wanted to school nurse to be in control of the anti-histamine. The ‘sick room’ and nurse could be too far away for such an emergency, whereas her school bag would usually be closer, and the school nurse wasn’t always at the school and the ‘sick room’ was not supervised or attended.

When I went to the ‘sick room’ to see the nurse she wasn’t even there at the time and I waited an hour for her (I had an appointment) she apologized for being late. Her being late actually played into my hand (do you think I used it? Too right I did). That didn’t convince her. So I said that I would get a court order if I had to and keep my daughter out of school until it was resolved as this was a life-threatening situation. I told her that they were not looking out for the interest of their student, that they were blindly sticking to policy and not taking into account their ‘Duty of Care’. I told her that I would go to the media. (Mental not to self – start with the media) The mention of the media had an instant u-turn in her attitude or maybe she finally realized that I was serious and that this was not negotiable.

As long as my daughter kept them in her school bag and she didn’t brag about them being there, they would allow it - as a trial and only with a doctor’s letter insisting that she carry them with her. Done.

Sometimes a mother’s readiness to ROAR is underestimated.