Bitten

Early last week, I awoke in the night with an itch on my left thigh. I was in dream state so I’m not really sure how long after that that I realized I was bitten by something. There were two other smaller bites around my knee cap and they itched so bad I was cursing myself in Russian whenever I would even think about scratching myself.

The mosquitos have been very infrequent lately and I couldn’t tell what bit me. Dina swore it wasn’t her. We don’t have bed bugs and I have not been bit like this before or since. The bite site on the inner left thigh was bigger than the rest and seemed to have a stinger in it although all attempts to remove it with a sterile needle and tweezers were futile. That site actually started to hurt and before I could say, "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoiconiosis" (meaning "black lung" and the longest word in the dictionary, according to Serge), the entire inner thigh turned red and swollen from knee to mid groin; cellulitis by God!

Like a dog, I try to lick and heal my own wounds. I applied Hydrocortisone cream on it which helped the itch but the infection seemed to only be getting worse. I kept saying to myself that I would give my bullet proof Russian-Greek immune system one more day but by day #4, my left thigh doubled in size and turned as red as a sunburn.

Saturday, James and I went to run the Hash and I wasn’t feeling 100% (Gee, I wonder why?). The run was on a levy through some rice fields by the river and by about one mile into it, I completely ran out of gas, got cold, wanted a sweater, and had goose bumps; odd sensation when it’s 100 degrees out. Now I know what this means (I’m a nurse practitioner) but the fact that my immune system was losing the battle made me feel vulnerable. When I got home, I popped my first antibiotic. Within 30 minutes, the redness faded by 50%. The swelling is almost completely gone now and I’m feeling pretty close to normal. Watch out for African bugs.