As I mentioned in an earlier post, David received his first ever bee sting this weekend.  Of course, it happened in a very public place and in a very public way.  After church on Sunday, I was visiting with some folks in the soon to be rebuilt parish hall when I realized David was outside playing, still in his church clothes and probably without shoes since he takes after his hill billy mother who prefers to go shoe-less as much as possible.  I grabbed his shoes and headed for the door, only to be met by David, who was screaming as though he had been shot.

“MOOMMMMY!”

“What son, what?”  Obviously, his screams meant he was still breathing so I wasn’t too worried at this point.

“MOOOMMMY!  I got stung.”

I went into action, had someone hand me my purse (which caused a bit of confusion since it is actually a small LL Bean back pack), picked up David and headed for the bathroom.  David continued to scream and cry, “IT STINGS!  IT HURTS” as I plopped him down on a stool and began rummaging through my purse.  Luckily for David, I carry a small first aid kit with me.  A good boy scout I would’ve made (be prepared!).  Even more luckily, I had thrown a small pill case with Benadryl into my purse before picking Mike up from camp on Friday, not knowing what state he would be in (Which also turned out to be a good thing because from the look of him, it appeared he had been rolling around in poison ivy.) and had yet to remove it.

The stinger was still in David, so I pulled it out, cleaned the area with alcohol and sent Jim, who by now had appeared at the bathroom door, quite annoyed that his son was causing such a ruckus, to get some water so David could take a benadryl.  David screamed through all of this.  Screamed through the ice pack application.  Screamed as I forced him to drink water in the hopes of breaking the screaming cycle.  I’ve never heard a child scream so much.  Fortunately, I had help.  Several people tried to comfort David, one of them a nice Russian lady who comes to our parish peridiodically.  She remarked, “only boys scream like that.  Girls, they hardly scream, but boys…”

I agreed with her.  She handed me some Russian candy to give to David (which I was able to read thank you very much…it was caramel!), which David wasn’t yet interested in.  At this point, Jim had driven the car around to the front of the church.  I gathered up what I could of our belongings and David and we headed for home.  David hasn’t had much ill effect from his sting.  Hopefully the next time won’t be so traumatic!  I always swelled up like crazy when stung, but perhaps the Benadryl kept the effects at a minimum…

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Insurance is a racket, do you hear me, A RACKET!!  I currently have three patients who may not be able to continue with my services because the insurance may not cover the therapy.  Two of them our children, one autistic child who was just beginning to talk, another who has an artic disorder and an adult stroke patient. Apparently, some insurance companies won’t cover therapy for children with developmental disorders.  Does this make sense to you?  How exactly is a kid supposed to make progress even if he has a developmental disorder.  I’m sorry Mr. Stuffed shirt making more money than should be legal, that you might have to shell out some of you bonus so a child can learn to communicate.  How can these people be human?

The stroke patient could come back next year.  NEXT YEAR!  And get 20 more visits.  Where is the sense in that?  Give me my 40 to 60 visits now so the many can move on with his life please.

Gahh!

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Yesterday, I witnessed something I’ve yet to see.  A squirrel in our back yard headed up a tree, probably to get away from our kitty Zeke, whom we sometimes allow to make brief forays into our back yard so that he can satisfy his tomcat’s urge to pillage every now and then.  Stupid squirrel headed straight for a robin’s nest in the tree.  I don’t think he was going for the nest (maybe he was?) but just trying to get away from the cat.  The momma robin began chasing him, even pecking at him and chirping madly.  Several other birds, not all of them robins, came to her aid.  The squirrel was chased away from the nest, out of the tree where he made his way across the top of the chain link fence.

It was amazing…breathtaking almost, to see these animals band together to protect their young.  I felt a kinship with the robins as I know I would do the same for my kid or any other I saw in trouble.  The squirrel, well…I felt a little sorry for him as he was so outnumbered.  But he got away in the end…

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Ever wondered about all those names in Russian novels…what seems like 15 names for one character.  It’s because they DO have 15 names.  A formal name, an intimate name, a patrynomic…sometimes both of them together.  I still don’t understand it and I’ll have to read it again and may I receive help from heaven if I ever have to remember how to make a patrynomic on the fly!

That’s it for now….God bless!