In the process of photographing the amorous tryst of two Monarch butterflies the other day, I got bitten by a horsefly. I didn’t realize it until the middle of the night when I woke and my ankle hurt. In my sleepiness I thought, “How did I sprain my ankle and not know it?”
I went back to sleep. For the next two days my ankle swelled and burned. It looked like all the photos Dr. Google has of DVTs in the feet and had all the symptoms — warm to the touch, discoloration, swelling. “Holy crap,” I thought late Friday evening when my ankle was at its most painful and most swollen, “I’m fucked.”
I called the ER. “You’d better come in,” they said. The ER is 15 miles away.
I started getting the house set up to leave the dogs maybe over night. “What if I have to stay? Someone will have to feed these guys and let them out?”
A little voice said, plaintively, “You need to talk to someone.”
There are drawbacks to living alone, but it’s also possible to live with someone with a faster panic trigger than I have. You never know. My friend Elizabeth talked me out of going to the ER, so I iced my foot some more and then went to bed.
Yesterday we went to the opening of a friend’s art show. I was sitting in a chair and Elizabeth and I were looking at my foot. “I don’t know,” she said.
Another party-goer passed by and looked at it and said, “Horse-fly bite. My husband has two. They’re driving him crazy itching. Does yours itch?”
Moral of the story? Every voyeur pays a price.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/rdp-sunday-plaintive/
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb (Women's Wilderness Legend) 
Horseflies are nasty, so sneaky, they always seem to know when you are distracted.
Definitely malicious.
Ow!
Yep. Always a price to pay for beauty. :p
Without fail )
this is horrible. i was bitten by one once, i had no idea they could take that big of chunk out of your skin. hope you heal quickly!
I don’t think he got much flesh from me – just got a bite in. From what I’ve seen on Dr. Google, it could’ve been much worse.
hope you heal quickly!
It’s almost gone. Just a little swelling now.
awesome news!
What does one do for a horsefly bite?
You keep it clean and ice it from time to time. Sometimes they itch, I guess. Mine hasn’t itched at all. And then you wear long pants all the time at the slough and boots and use icky insect repellant. 🙂
I hope that makes it heal quickly! And do use icky repellant and long pants to prevent another. And keep good watch on the dogs, too!
Yeah. I went out in shorts because it was INCREDIBLY windy here which keeps flies from landing and flying, but it was calm at the slough. I don’t understand that. The dogs are protected. They get to use a substance that keeps pests off of them for a month or more at a time.
The lucky dogs — I’d opt for a substance that could be used once a month!
Can you get antihistamine tablets? Or antihistamine cream? Although if the swelling has hone down you might not need them.
I didn’t know what it was in the beginning. I should have realized that the antihistamine I took at night helped, but…
Yes I take it for insect bites but as I have hay-fever it’s only needed when it’s not hay-fever season
Oooch – horsefly bites are horrible. I hope you feel better now. How we suffer for our art!
Seriously. Just to see butterfly porn. 😉
😉
I have had them, but the last was some time ago. They really take a chunk out of you when they bite.
I don’t want another one. 🙂
Horse fly bites hurt! Imagine being a poor horse.
I know. 😦
Hmmm — I wonder if that could be a partial cause for all the race horse deaths in California this year?
Wow. I wonder — I know nothing about horse flies except I have always know I should avoid them. Now I know why.
But I don’t think they’re killing horses: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/27/us/santa-anita-horse-deaths-what-we-know/index.html
I only got bit by one once–and that was enough. So sorry your symptoms sound extreme 😦
I’m avoiding those buggers from now on. I got bug-repellant. 🙂 I think it was a pretty bad bite but no blister and no itching, so I don’t know. I don’t want another experience.
No, absolutely no re-runs of this! 🙂