Have you ever been stung by a bald faced hornet?

I was today, and lemme tell ya, it sure isn't fun!

"A Bald-Faced Hornet’s sting is painful because it contains a venom. The venom injected by the stinger can make the stings hurt, itch and swell for about 24 hours."

Fuck

It's been 6 hours and the pain has finally mostly subsided. I've been stung before but nothing like this. I was stung between the toes on two separate occasions and that didn't hurt as much as it did today. That's mostly why I don't wear sandals lol.

I'm about 10 minutes into my hour-long drive and I feel an insane burning pain in my inner thigh. "Oh my God what the fuck is this" I yell, then my boyfriend looks over and says that's a bald face hornet. Thank whatever gods exist that we had a napkin that he could grab it with and throw it out the window. 

I've been through childbirth so I know the top of the 1 to 10 pain scale. This was a solid eight for at least 2 hours before it tapered off to a seven. 

I pulled over at an ice cream cafe that's in an old community hall in the middle of nowhere and ripped my pants down immediately as soon as the car was in park. Thankfully the stinger didn't stick but oh boy did it feel like it for a long time. I, having been stung by hornets before, thought the pain would go away in 10 minutes or so and decided to keep driving. Oh boy was I wrong. I ended up pulling over at a gas station 5 minutes down the road and switching seats with my boyfriend so I could concentrate on saying "oh my fuck why, Jesus fucking Christ this hurts so much" over and over for the rest of the drive. 

Over the next hour the pain spreads from the sting site to the whole top of my leg, my boyfriend jokingly asks if I want him to suck the venom out Indiana Jones style. Google quells my fear but does not bring me hope, as seen by the quote at the top of this blog.

I get home and text my friend in Ottawa, the first thing he says is putting some ice on it when it happened would help. I'm thinking to myself I was in the middle of nowhere not near any ice, then I stop... And think... I first pulled over at an ice cream store... They have things that are iced if not ice itself 🤣

Stay safe friends, always carry ice on you.