I tempted the Fates late last week by noting to a cow-orker, who was complaining about the wasps in our warehouse, that I’d not been stung by anything since I was a mere lad. Sure enough, this Saturday, during the top of the fourth inning of my son’s baseball game, something stung or bit me. The initial incident was a total surprise. I don’t know if it hurt or surprised me more. I just swatted at that area of my arm and then looked down. It felt sort of like a small electric shock. It didn’t hurt much or anything immediately after.
I thought maybe I’d got off lucky. Then a small area about the size of a nickel, but irregular in shape, around the initial site, the inside of my left bicap, started to swell a bit. It looked the size of a bee sting, and was somewhat yellowish in color, compared to my normal skin tone. A while after that the the area surrounding that area began to become more pink, almost as if I was sunburned in that area. This area was somewhat oblong, about 2-3 inches by 1-1.5 inches. This area began to itch a bit, and then the initial contact site, just a centimeter or less in size blistered.
By the next day, or maybe even later that evening, the initial pink, larger area has also taken on a somewhat “yellow beneath the pink” tone, and is slightly bumpy, like a rash of contact dermititis. It itches, but not as bad as poison ivy, and not all of the time. The area surrounding this area is now a lighter shade of pink, and a little itchy, but not as much as the central area. This surrounding area is about 1 inch again in extension beyond the initial, darker area surrounding the bite. Somewhere in the first 24 hours the small blister at ground zero must have broken and sort of scabbed closed. It is about the size of the tip of a ball point pen.
For reference, this occurred in the upper Tampa Bay area of Florida. I’m fairly sure it won’t kill me, at least not in the next few minutes, and the adverse effects seem to be limited to this area. I’m mostly just curious what got me so that I might seek my revenge.