My Birthday Was Almost To Die For...The Rest Of The Story

My vacation last week turned out to be an experience I will never forget or want to re-live. It started with a great birthday quickly turning badly. Very badly in my opinion. You can read the first part here.

This is the rest of the story, backing up just a bit. As I ran around my camper to the front door, I was still trying to swat off the swarm of bees, and escape inside without any following me in. Well, a couple did get in. One was in my shirt stinging me. I yelled to my wife what had happened, and while she was looking for any medication that might help the sting, the inside of the camper began to spin, or so I thought.

I have a fear of fainting for whatever reason, so I sat down, and apparently went into anaphylactic shock . My wife told me later she was screaming at me to wake up, followed my a couple of hard hand smacks to the face, throwing water at me and then placing a bag of ice on me, which did bring be back to consciousnesses.

It was at that point I heard her calling for an ambulance. I tried to yell don't. I was more concerned about the expense rather than any health issue I was currently experiencing. Didn't matter, an ambulance was dispatched. And two showed up. Do I get charged for two?

There were all sorts of emergency personnel in the camper, asking me questions I didn't have an answer to because I kept losing consciousness. One of my friends was also in the camper after my wife called him for help. At one point, he asked me if I could see him and if I knew his name. My answers were "no and no."

My blood pressure dropped so low, the medical personnel initially couldn't get a reading. I had hives all over my body. Fortunately, my throat and tongue did not swell up. The EMTs needed to help walk me out of the camper to the ambulance since the doorway of a travel trailer is way to a small to fit a gurney through.

So off I went on my first ever ambulance ride to the Towanda Memorial Hospital, which is about 17 miles from the campground. The crew in the two ambulances - H.O.P.S and Guthrie, the Towanda Memorial Hospital staff, my nurse, Nikki and the doctor who's name I forget (sorry), were all very professional and made me feel safe. They got me right in, administered medicine (Benadryl injection into my hand which hurt like hell), and when they determined I was going to be okay, released me to go back to the campground. And because I came in with nothing on my feet, Nikki,my nurse, gave me a pair of bright yellow socks to wear so I didn't have to walk out bare-footed.

Also, much thanks to my friends at the campground, Dennis and Cindy. Dennis broke the camp road speed limit getting to my camper quickly to help in any way he could, and to Cindy for getting my wife to the hospital. That's what the meaning of camp friends is all about.

After we returned, I settled back into my chair, I looked at my wife and said (deleting expletives) "What the_____ just happened? If you were not here to get me to the hospital, who knows how badly this could have turned out? Things like this don't happen to me." Well, I guess it just did.

My Birthday Was Almost To Die For...Literally, Part One.