I Woke Up Like This

Greg and I went out for a long bike ride on Wednesday. The route took us along the river and canals that run the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. We had to take a ferry across the canal at one point and I was chatting with another cyclist as we crossed. As we disembarked the ferry, he turned to me and said, “Let me be the first to welcome you to Holland.” Yay – another new country for me!

 

The bike trail that I had been riding on was paved and flat and glorious. You could see for miles around and the scenery was stunning. In all honesty, it looks like Iowa! I have several friends riding RAGBRAI this week and I felt like I was riding with them (except without 10,000 other cyclists and Mr. Pork Chop waiting in the next town).

 

 

As I was cruising down the path at a fast pace, a bee slammed into my face, just at the base of my left nostril. It hurt like a bitch! Instant stinging (surprise!) and my eyes were watering as I continued pedaling and rubbing my face to make sure I had gotten it off me and the stinger wasn’t still in there. I haven’t been stung by a bee since I was a young kid and I quickly remembered how not fun it was. The area didn’t swell up or become inflamed, so I forgot about it. I even forgot to mention it to Greg until later that evening. “Oh yeah, I got stung by a bee and it hurt like a bitch.”

The rest of the ride was mostly uneventful. More beautiful scenery. A chat with (and assistance from) a lovely Belgian couple who helped navigate an unmarked detour. Sunny skies for the first time in a week.

 

I woke up this morning (today is Friday) looking like I’d had a stroke. Or that my attempts to look like Kylie Jenner didn’t turn out as intended.

 

WTF, delayed-onset allergic reaction?!

I think you can kind of see the spot where the stinger entered if you look really closely under my left nostril, which is totally a place that I want people paying close attention to on any given day.

Just because it’s funny, I took the below picture first. I had to take a second picture in better lighting conditions (and with a slightly better expression) because this looks like a mug shot taken at 3 AM after a bar fight. My mouth is already crooked, and the puffy lip on the left side just exacerbates the whole thing.

 

So, as was the case with poison oak (which I was never allergic to as a kid), I guess that I have developed a mild allergy to bee stings in my old age. Good to know! I’m glad it’s just a mild allergy, because my reaction to poison oak is now violent. This doesn’t hurt or itch, so I guess I got off easy.