Preparedness pays off

The night before last I met "face to foot" with a lovely (NOT!) little baby scorpion. Yep, I stepped on the wee one barefooted...with my laptop in hand, even! At first I thought I had stepped on a chard of glass (like I had done two days earlier...shoes, Jennie, shoes!!), but as the sharp pain turned to a crazy stinging burning pain I knew it must have been something else. Because I still had my laptop in my hand, I couldn't get a good look at the underside of my foot to tell what it was and at first I couldn't see anything on the floor either. I started shaking my foot (think hokey pokey) and saying in a not so calm voice, "Is it off???!!! Is it off??!!" By now after my one hundred repeats of "OW! OW! OW! OW!" all the boys and Michael were in the hallway to see what was going on. Finally, Michael had the presence of mind to take the laptop out of my hand, although I have to say it must have been an impressive sight seeing me dance like that on one foot with one up in the air so someone can examine the bottom of my foot WITH a laptop in hand!! :-) It was then that I saw the little scorpion. And it was tiny. We've seen some big ones in the house off and on over the last several months. This one was probably only 1/4 the size of some of the big ones we've seen. I guess I'm glad it was little. I didn't need to add the disgusting "CRUNCH" of an arthopod feeling on my bare feet added to the intense burning. And in my own defense I do NORMALLY wear shoes around the house, especially in the evenings b/c we have seen so many scoripions around, but Jeffrey had just worn my outside to close the chicken coop and they were wet. I'd asked him to just leave them outside and I'd carried on barefooted. Guess what...I haven't been barefooted since Wednesday night!!!!

So how is this a story about preparedness, Jennie? You didn't sound prepared at all? Well, I'm glad you asked. A few months ago I had read about and purchased from Beeyoutiful a product called Activated Charcoal Powder. In the article I read, it was touted as being fabulous for helping to heal spider bites. It supposedly draws the poison out of the blood and out of your system. You can take it internally or make a poltice externally. The stories were amazing of what it could do, so since I was ordering some other things anyway, I tacked some onto my order. And put it on our medicine shelf. Well, about four days ago, Michael said "I've been meaning to ask you, what is that black stuff on the shelf?" So I told him about the charcoal powder supposedly being great for stings and bites to draw out poison. Well, my quick thinking husband on Wednesday night remembered about the charcoal and asked if I wanted to get it. Brilliant! I love that man! So, I had Jonathan fetch me the Beeyoutiful magazine and Michael followed the directions to make a politice.

Here's my foot on Thursday morning after sleeping with the politce on all night.

Here's my foot wrapped in the poltice w/ a moist paper towel and saran wrap (to keep the paper towel from coming off and then the charcoal getting all over my sheets. THAT would have been a mess!!

Here's the charcoal paste that we used as poltice. Looks like black tempra paint. Thankfully, it didn't smell badly. Not much of a smell at all really.

The product of the day!

I put an ice pack on my foot while Michael was making the poltice. Then we wrapped the poltice around the spot on my foot that was hurting. I couldn't ever really see exactly where it stung me. It was somewhere between toe #4 and pinky. But that whole part of my foot was throbbing. After we put on the poltice, we wrapped the ice pack around it for a few more minutes, and then I went to bed (w/out the ice pack). I wasn't sure what to expect pain wise the next day. I've never been stung by a scorpion, but I was thinking it would be like a bee or wasp sting. So maybe a little red at the site and tender for a could of days. Well, guess what?? When I washed off the charcoal, I couldn't even see where it was red and there was NO pain. None. It was like I hadn't been stung at all. Amazing! My two thumbs up for prayers and charcoal!! And being prepared!