Passion's Instinct

Fifty Nine

Hayden

One afternoon I was outside playing tennis, sweating in the heat from the sun.

Just as I decided I was about to get a drink from inside, Natalie called me in, saying that I should take a break and that the kids wanted to play.

I walked out of the tennis court and closed the gate, clanging when the metal hit. I ran over to the slider door and greeted Natalie, leaning down to kiss her. She quickly pulled away and grabbed my shoulder, jerking me forward.

"Natalie, what are --"

"Don't move, Hayden," she said, her voice shaking. She watched something behind me, and being dumb, I turned to see what it was.

It was a bee.

I was pretty much deathly allergic to bees, but before I could think, I was already swatting at it with my hand, trying to get it away.

Never. Swat. At. A. Bee. Especially when you're deathly allergic.

Just don't.

Seriously.

Then beginning to finally think, I tried to run inside, but the bee had already targeted me and dug it's stinger into the skin of my arm.

I cried out and brushed it off my arm, but when the body dropped, the stinger was buried in my skin now.

And that's when Natalie started to freak out, because only one other time had she witnessed me getting stung by a bee, and she knew how my body reacted to it. But that was when I had my EpiPen with me.

Yeah... now I wish I ordered a new refill like Natalie told me to.

I started to itch, especially around my eyes and mouth. Natalie took my hand away to stop me, but I pulled it back towards my eyes and rubbed them absentmindedly.

And then, that was when I started to have to dreaded, worst part of getting stung...

My throat closing up.

"Natalie," I said, before I lost my breath. "Call 911, now. I don't have my EpiPen."

"Okay. Stay there, Hayden. I'm going to call them and get your inhaler from the kitchen counter."

She took her hand off of me and put August on the floor in the living room, leaving him to try to crawl. He was six months that day, and he was learning and growing faster than we could keep track.

I sat down on the floor so I wouldn't collapse and tried to breathe. I knew I wouldn't be able to now that I was this far and I didn't have my EpiPen to help me.

"Hayden." I looked up, and Natalie tossed me my inhaler. I caught and uncapped it, getting ready to use it, but I sat there, gasping for air.

Natalie ran over and held my inhaler up for me, putting it in my mouth and pushing it. I tried to breathe it in but couldn't. I didn't have enough oxygen in my system.

Natalie lowered the inhaler and ran her fingers through my hair, kissing the place beside my mouth. "They should be here any minute, Hayden. Just hold out for one second..."

Before I knew it, I was strapped onto a stretcher and put in the ambulance, alone with a couple of technicians. They closed the doors and rushed around, strapping an oxygen mask on me and turning it on, forcing the air back into me.

In a few minutes' time, once the ambulance arrived at the hospital, I regained most of my breathing, but still was itching and couldn't talk. My throat still felt tight.

I reached up to touch my face, and I could feel the puffiness and swelling of my eyes and cheeks.

As I was rolled into the hospital on the stretcher, down the hallways and into a room and hooked up to drugs and oxygen again, I realized:

My whole family had been in the hospital way too much lately.