This is my first year beekeeping. There are all kinds of things you learn in your first year. Not just how to identify what's going on in the hive, and how to manage your bees, but you learn all the stupid things you can do around a hive. I've knelt on bees while installing them and got stung, put my finger directly on a bee to pick up a frame - stung again. Pissed them off by going in at the wrong time of day and had to leave running. Not made my smoker last long enough so I'm in a hive and realize I need smoke only to see it's out and have to go running. These are things that happen. They are all stupid and can be avoided by going incredibly slowly and being very thoughtful, having back up plans, triple checking things before moving forward and communicating with your mentor more often and before going into your hive (maybe even going in with him/her).

Getting stung is kind of inevitable as a beekeeper. It's hard to avoid it completely, especially initially because as a newbie you're kind of clumsy and unaware. So people learn how they react. What many people don't realize is that reactions can change. With bee stings every reaction can either desensitize you or sensitize you on the spectrum of reactions. This means the more you get stung, the closer you can be towards having a fatal reaction or to being that much more able to handle stings. You may see other beekeepers who have been doing this a while be all badassy getting stung all the time and not having a problem with it. When you see this know that YOU ARE NOT THERE! Getting stung is a big deal and should be avoided as much as possible. Using gloves is not a sissy thing to do. Wearing a full suit doesn't make you a prude. It makes you careful. If you want to keep beekeeping, it is best for your bees if you don't get stung. Also, don't be embarrassed if you start to have a reaction. Every reaction matters. Pay attention to your body for the hour after you get stung and notice if anything odd happens. If something happens, recognize that it could be from the sting. Don't try to talk yourself in to blaming something else so easily. If you do that, it could mean a worse fate the next time.

This week, on Tuesday, I got to help a friend remove a hive from under floorboards at a house. It was such a cool thing to help with. A huge hive completely established under the closet floor. I was in heaven helping out. It was so huge that it was taking forever. We were in our suits, with no air conditioning, on the second floor for about five hours. I had also just been at a regatta in Philly being outside running around like crazy the weekend before. I wasn't fully recovered from that. Then I got stung on my knee. About 30 minutes after that I started feeling really flushed, faint and had a pounding headache. It felt kind of like a dehydration headache. All this would make sense since I hadn't drunk anything that morning since we got there. So, I got some Ibprofen, water and sat in the AC of the truck for a bit. I felt my heart race a little, but I figured I was just really overheated. After about an hour I was good to go. Felt totally fine again and was back at work helping out. No one thought anything of it, and I have to say I was a little embarrassed.

Thinking back - that was an anaphylactic reaction. It wasn't shock, but it was a full body, systemic reaction and I 100% blame it on the sting in hindsight. I was too proud, embarrassed and confused to blame the sting at the time. After all, I hadn't had a reaction before so why would I have one now. Why would I, all of a sudden, now fall into the 2% of people who have a severe reaction to bees? Surely something else was to blame.

Now let's go to Thursday. I was planning to run this Tough Mudder race on Saturday. Last time I was planning to race on the weekend and went into my hives on the Thursday before I ended up with a sting on my finger that effected my ability to perform a little bit at the race. Therefore, I was a little worried I might get stung somewhere that would effect my ability to race. However, it was such a cool opportunity to learn more about working hives and do some fun beekeeping with my two best "beeks" that I couldn't turn it down. The plan was to move six hives from a couple locations up to the farm I now live on which was an agreement Steve Repasky made with the new owner of the farm. All in all it meant moving about a million bees. It's best to move the hives at night as they are all at home, so you don't leave half the hive at the previous location. We started in Baldwin, strapped up the hives, duct taped the entrances got them loaded. No one got stung.

Bees move differently at night. They crawl more than fly - this is something I did not know as a new beekeeper. This was my first experience working with bees at night. If a bee lands on your shoe, you might not notice, but it can crawl up you. They don't fly off your clothes, they more sit there so you have to triple check your jacket…etc before taking it off to make sure there aren't any there.

Next stop was the Burgh Bees Community Apiary in Homewood to get the other hives. We pulled up and started working. Smoking the bees that were bearding on the hives to get them to go inside. Strapping them up. We didn't duct tape this bunch because there were a lot of bees still on the outside of the hives. Got everything loaded and we were about to be off.

I wear, from bottom to top, full sneakers, socks, jeans with cuffs holding the bottom of the jeans closed around my ankles, tshirt, and jacket with veil, and gloves. This time I realized, after I got stung on each ankle that I wasn't wearing long enough socks and my cuffs weren't done up low enough. This meant that there was just the slightest gap exposing my skin and the crawling bees that ended up on my shoe got me. After I'd taken off my gear and decided it's best for me to get in the truck to wait for Steve and Nate to finish up, I got stung on my left hand by grabbing my jacket and not realizing a bee was still on it - stung again, rookie error. It was pitch black, no lights, and at this point raining with thunder. It was a little chaotic. I was a little concerned since I got stung 3 times and that's the most I've been stung at one time.

Nate comes in and says he got stung four times and that six is his maximum that he'll put up with tonight. I start to feel better. Steve also has about four stings at this point. No big deal right? This is what beekeepers do, right?

A couple minutes later as we are leaving and going over Highland Park Bridge I tell Steve that I feel weird. He asks if my hands and feet are tingling. I say yes and that I'm feeling dizzy. Immediately he slams the accelerator, tells Nate to call 911 and that we are going to the hospital. Quick reaction on his part that completely saved my life. While driving about 90mph up Route 28, Steve tries to explain to me how to use an epi pen - something I have never been trained to do, or seen in person. I'm barely holding on at this point, super dizzy, feeling my throat closing up, trying to focus on getting any kind of air through this tiny straw that my throat has become. Needless to say, I'm useless at dealing with the epi pen and drop it - setting it off and bending the needle. Damn.

The rest of this story is a compilation from doctors, nurses, Steve, Nate and myself. My short version of it is pretty quick - I passed out, I woke up. The longer version is pretty graphic.

Steve and Nate arranged to meet the ambulance at some corner parking lot in Etna. Close to hospitals and easy to find. While waiting, Steve had me sitting in the truck seat, feet on the ground with my head against his chest. He was trying to keep my chest up to get air as all my body wanted to do was fall down. At this point I'm vomiting, dry heaving, weezing (repeat). Then he props me up, tells me to open my eyes and look at him, focus on my breathing. It might've been this moment (or an earlier moment in the truck) when I remember focusing on my breathing and freaking out about not getting air. Then I realized that just a few more attempts and I'd be done - that would be it and I'd be dead, no more struggling. It was in that moment that I thought, "suffocation might not be a bad way to go after all." Then my eyes rolled back in my head and I collapsed in Steve's arms. Note: this story, at this point becomes more traumatic for my friends than anyone else as they saw the worst of everything. I'm sure I'll be paying for their PTSD treatment later on in the year.

An Etna cop pulled up casually to the scene first. Threatened to burn the hives in Steve's truck immediately and really wasn't helpful, only combative. Then a blue/white UPMC paramedic car pulled up followed by an ambulance. The ambulance EMTs were moving pretty slowly, but the guy in the UPMC car was on it. He saw me immediately and got everyone rushing around. They got me on the gurney and into the truck and were peppering me with shots while one guy put an IV in both my hands and connected me to a bunch of machines. Epinephrin, Steroids, Benedryl (repeat). Steve said it looked like there were about 30 empty syringes or more scattered on the floor of the ambulance and my arms ended up looking like Mr Scisserhands. Not to mention the fact that I'm still vomiting and now wetting myself as my body loses control. A bee ended up in the ambulance and stung one of the paramedics on his thumb - oh the irony.

At this point Steve and Nate leave to get the hives back to the apiary. Lynnetta met them there to unload the poor confused bees, but better that then showing up at the hospital with a million bees in tow. By the time they get to St Margaret's Hospital to meet the greeter in the ER they find I've only been there about 13 minutes. Meaning the ambulance EMTs were working on me a while in the lot before leaving. The greeter at the ER was a very nice lady in probably her 60s or 70s. She offered to find out what was going on and went back to talk to the doctors. She came back and told the guys that I was unresponsive and that they were about to intubate me. Talk about freak out moment for my friends! At some point, the guys (now named the bee farmers) were just let back in to the room with the other about 20 people in the room. Doctors, Nurses, Residents, Aides, this was an all hands on deck experience. HIPAA goes out the window and I really couldn't care less.

They were still pumping epi in to me at record rate while they are cutting off my shirt. Ultimately, the doctor said he used eight times as much epinephrin than he's ever used on a patient. They had the pulp fiction heart slamming pure epi needle out ready to use as soon as my heart stopped beating - an 8 inch enormous gauge needle that's sole job is to puncture the heart and deliver a full dose of strong and pure adrenaline, the "Hail Mary" last ditch effort save.  At this point I'm under 70% oxygen saturation and they are planning to intubate. At the moment the nurse is about to intubate, somehow I wake up. I look up, see the gorgeous ginger haired, white skinned Melinda above me with a huge tube about to enter my mouth and I ask "Who are you?" Everyone stops, smiles and cheers erupt. I'm awake. They didn't have to intubate, my heart did not stop. Amazing. At this point they give me a terrible Potassium drink and tell me to down it. I obey and boy was it gross. If you ever have to go through this, request it mixed with grape juice, definitely not ginger ale - a trick I learned later in my ICU stay. From then on for the next 20 hours they wouldn't let me drink or eat anything in case they needed to intubate still. For the record, the doctors tell me that one epi injection wouldn't have done much for my reaction as I needed enough for an elephant to do any good. Makes me feel a little less bad for dropping Steve's epi pen in the truck.

Once I'm just slightly more awake, my first reaction is to get my phone and text my tough mudder friends to say I won't be able to run on Saturday. I'm ridiculous and obviously need to rethink my priorities. Steve calls my mother and calmly tells her I'm okay, but that I'm in the hospital after having an allergic reaction to a sting. She didn't really find out the full of it until next next day from the nurse in ICU. What happens next I don't really remember. I have small pictures here and there about what happened. I know Steve and Nate stayed until I was rolled up to ICU. I remember one of the nurses asking me if I was still going to be a beekeeper and I said "of course." I remember cracking some hilarious jokes. I remember a lot of happy faces.

My nurse in ICU that night was super attentive. Autumn - she was the best. I kept wondering why she never left my side. I couldn't imagine I was as bad off as some people I've seen in ICU, but I really didn't know what all happened to me. They are still pumping me with epi (adrenaline), steroids, and benadryl like crazy. The adrenaline made my body shake violently and continuously, but was necessary to prevent a secondary shock reaction due to the venom still being in my system. The nurse said I'd feel like I ran a marathon the next day and boy did I.  They talked about my EKG and how there was some prolonged part of it that they were worried about - something that the anaphylaxis had caused. They were worried about my lungs and my oxygenation. The journey definitely wasn't over. They were also trying to pump me with Magnesium and Potassium. Going through my veins burned them out meaning they ended up giving me 5 different IVs, and drinking it meant complications intubating if that was still needed later on. So many doctors with different plans. I couldn't keep it straight. There were concerns over my thin blood - something I've known about but that's never been diagnosed. It's why I bruise so easily. There was concern over how low my resting heart rate was, and how they couldn't stabilize my blood pressure. There was just a lot of concern.

Friday, about 24 hours after everything happened, the epi started giving me amazing pain. I felt like my head was going to burst. I would curl up, hold my head and just scream. I did not think my skull could hold my brain blood vessels in - it was obvious they wanted to burst. The nurse hit the pause button on the IV. I took note. She called the doctor and he said to continue the same drip. Same effect - this time, I hit the pause button and refused to receive the dose. The nurse called the doctor back. I heard her say something about the possibility of me stroking out. To which I reacted "I don't want to have a stroke too!" They discussed lowering it - halving the quantity. This worked. Then about five hours later the same thing. I hit pause, the nurse called the doctor, they halved it again. The last time, they took me off completely. Next to be removed from my system came the benadryl and finally the steroids. After I was clear of all drugs, that's when my body really cramped up. All those shakes, all those sticks - my body was over this trip. I couldn't lie in bed anymore. So I stood, stretched, marched in place - anything to get my muscles moving without leaving the confines of the machines I was connected to. All of this was very strange for the nurses as I was still in ICU and patients in ICU normally can't get to the bathroom unassisted, and stand, and talk to friends and have visitors. Every single rounds they did, the doctors emphasized that they have no idea how I survived, how they have never seen someone as sick as me come in and live, that they have never seen a worse case of anaphylactic shock, how lucky I am to be as fit and strong as I am because most other people wouldn't have been able to handle the trauma let alone that much medicine at a time.

I have no idea how I survived. I don't know why I survived. I'm glad I did. To me, I passed out and woke up. It felt weird hearing the gory details. The ups and downs of it all. I went into shock and I woke up - right? The doctors and nurses sure made it hard to forget how lucky I was. The faces of my friends telling the story, the trauma in their eyes as they say "I would've preferred not to have experienced this," tell a very memorable tale.

It was amazing having visitors. I was so sad about what all had happened, and the fact that I was losing a hobby that had brought me so much fun and so many friends. Having Steve come by and talk through what happened and talk about next steps for me with helping with education for beekeeping and other treatment options for dealing with the allergy. Devon coming by to talk about how I can be involved in advocacy still. Becca coming by to show her tremendous support. My mom bringing me clothes, and food, and drinks. Erica coming by to spend some QT with me. Doug, one of my previous rowers (also a pastor) coming and sharing scripture and praying for me, Mick bringing flowers. My EMM team sending flowers in the shape of a dog! Judy bringing me a great lunch. Then there were the Facebook messages. Given I was on FB probably far too much through this ordeal, but it was so nice to feel the presence of all the people in my life. Text messages that were so kind. Snap chats that cracked me up. Then my tough mudder team did the entire course Saturday with a picture of my face on a stick! Support came in all forms and from all directions.

I was really lucky. I was really amazingly lucky. It was inevitable that I would've had this anaphylactic reaction the next time I got stung. That next time, if it wasn't moving hives on this night could've been me going into my hives alone. I could've had a reaction, passed out and been found a couple hours later dead. If I hadn't had someone with me this could've been much worse. If my friends and I didn't recognize the symptoms and just kept going I'd be dead. If the ambulance had taken a minute longer, I could be dead. If we had gone straight to the hospital instead of an ambulance, I might've died because the hospital wouldn't have been prepared. On the other hand, if I had realized my anaphylactic reaction (not shock) on Tuesday, I would have stopped going into hives then and not waited to experience the full blown anaphylactic shock experience two days later.

I do not blame the bees. Honey bees aren't attack bees. Just like someone doesn't blame the peanut or the shrimp if they have those allergies. I should've seen the warning signs from previous stings. I should've been more careful and attentive. All of that could have prevented getting stung as much, and also could have stopped me earlier on as soon as I noticed any kind of systemic reaction.

I am very much so still processing this event. It was such heightened trauma followed by kind of a normal, sore walking away from the hospital day. What do I do now? Do I just go back to work like nothing happened? What are these lingering pains I have all over my body? Do I need to see more doctors? How do I carry an epi-pen with me everywhere? How do I handle my brain wandering to the what if I had died, what if I had a stroke, what if, what ifs? How do I feel about how I reacted to dying - it seemed like no big deal, there was no terror? What does all of this mean? How deep do I want to go in this rabbit hole? I don't know.

What I do know for sure is that I'm loved, that I have a purpose, and that I am deathly allergic to bees. I have to start small and figure the rest out on my own time.

*Update: I found out later from my medical records that they had me on a 16mg per hour drip of adrenaline/epinephrine in ICU. This is the dose they started to cut back on when I got the massive headaches. A typical dose is 0.3mg from an epipen and perhaps a few more 0.1 injections at the hospital.
**2015 Update: I have been diagnosed with Systemic Mastocytosis which is a histamine/mast cell problem with my skin, blood and bone marrow. It means I have aggressive allergic reactions to all allergens (and things high in histamine including foods, alcohol..etc). Who knows if I had this slightly before this incident, but what is clear is that this incident made it worse.
***2016 Update: I got stung by a bee and didn't die! Gave myself my epipen and chugged liquid benedryl within 30 seconds. Was at a rowing regatta, so also was able to get oxygen within 60 seconds (after some running to get to the medic tent). Was at the hospital within 20 minutes for observation before going home. Very glad to know I can survive a sting. My tryptase levels were through the roof from it for a while (thanks mastocytosis...)