A Different Experience

Among all of the other events that have been consuming us lately, we were attacked by ants on Sunday morning.

There are two swimming pools next to us in our neighborhood. One next door and the other two doors down on the same side of the street. We had never seen the second one up close although it is visible through the fences and past the pool next door. Josie and I decided to take a walk along the fence line on the golf course to get a close up of that pool since the owners seem to be gone for the summer. It is a very nice pool but seemed to have water that was turning green from lack of attention. We were leaning on the fence looking at the pool and backyard when I discovered ants all over my arm that were on the top of the fence. Josie also had ants everywhere. We rushed home, took our clothes off and did the best we could to eliminate all the ants that were crawling on us. As near as we could tell, they were red fire ants and they bit us all over our hands, arms and legs.

Josie had a more severe reaction from the bites than I had. Her hands were swollen and her feet were swollen and we could see the effects of the venom or whatever they injected. We spent the day Sunday treating the bites with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide but Josie was not responding very well to that treatment. Yesterday, we went to our (new) doctor who was just down the street - another story. It seems that our newly appointed Primary Care Physician changed office locations  two years ago. My rant from yesterday about the AT&T incompetency carried over to later yesterday when we discovered that our insurance provider - United Healthcare - gave us an address for our new physician that was two years old. As it turned out, the new location is actually closer to our house and is only about a mile away from us. Anyhow, the Nurse Practitioner saw us and gave Josie a shot to help with the itching and swelling. She is recovering nicely today but what an experience.

Life is never dull for us...