Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Scorpion Wars -- Episode One -- The fight to the death

One night I woke up and I felt really strange. I got up and went into the bathroom and realized that my hands were itching. Within a couple of minutes I began to feel like my lips were tingling and my throat was closing up. Since this was not exactly normal, I decided we needed to do something drastic, like go to the hospital. We went to the emergency room and, for a change, were quickly admitted. After a few minutes doctors started interviewing me. One of them shined a light in my eyes and ask me to follow it back and forth from right to left. Strangely enough, I couldn't do that. My eyes were jerking and wouldn't track. The doctor announced that I had been stung by a scorpion and immediately ordered and IV with pure benadryl. Within a few seconds, it was like there was ice water in my blood and the feeling started at my feet and then worked its way up to my head. That ended the scorpion sting effects.

They kept me in the hospital for an hour or so and then sent me home. They said I would probably sleep for most of the day. But, that isn't what happened. I don't get sleepy with benadryl.

Anyway, that was the official start of the Scorpion Wars. Our old house had tons of bugs for many years. Then all the bugs disappeared and we got scorpions. We mostly fight them with sticky glue board traps that work really well. When we moved to our new house, we inherited a huge supply of scorpions. We have killed more than twenty in one evening. We now fight them with glue boards, diotomaceous earth, and a black light. We have sprayed around the house, mostly to kill the bugs scorpions eat. They don't seem to be bothered with any of the commercial spray poisons out there. We can still get two or three in one night. There seems to be a never ending supply.

Tune in for Episode Two

1 comment:

  1. That jerky eye movement is called a nystagmus. It most likely indicated that you had something wrong with your cranial nerves (III, VI, or VII) - probably inflammation. :)

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