Tuesday 2 May 2006

Exercising is not good for health

Last Friday I had the worse experience in my entire life, that I can recall, of course.
My sister and I have been going cycling through the tracks around my village for the last few days. This was normal, fun, nice. We were in the last quarter of the track, almost arriving into town, when I felt an insect flying around me. At first I thought it was a dragonfly, as I was just seeing it from the side of my right eye. I, then, tried to shoo it off but soon I realised it wasn't a dragonfly nor only one. It was a whole bunch of bees. A swarm was following me. I was about to lose control of the bike so I stopped and threw it to the floor. I tried to run but I couldn't. It was then when I saw the beekeeper (it could have easily been Yuri Gagarin, though). She (I think was a she for the voice) was shouting at me "¡Fuera!" ("Shoo! Go away!") but I was somehow understanding "¡Para!" ("Stop!") so I did.
At the same time my sister was shouting at me to get the fuck on the bike and fly away (she was not swearing but it really sounded like). I was paralyzed. I couldn't react. I shouted to the beekeeper to get (the fuck) over there and help me. My sister was still shouting, I tried to run but I couldn't; my legs weren't working. I fell on the ground (hurting my knees, by the way). I even thought I must be allergic as I was having a very bad reaction. Then I did as the beekeeper "was saying" I should do, I stayed quiet in the ground with my hands covering my face. My sister helped me to get up and to shoo the bees away of me. She told me to get her bike (which was closer to where we were) and get out, so I did. I could have gone straight to the Olympic Games as I cycled so fast that I was in town in less than a minute. My sister took long to arrive –the bike's chaing ha. I was having a nervous breakdown. I had been stung by at least six bees. Three of them were big bites, the worse in my head which still hurts, the rest were small as I was shooing them off.
The worse of everything was the nervous-breakdown, really. The stings are just stings and, as I must not bee allergic, they are not important. My wounded knees still hurt as well but it will pass out. But what will stay in me forever is the bad feeling. I couldn't react, didn't know what should I do and, even though my sis and the beekeeper were telling me what I should do, I couldn't see that was what was right.
The curious thing is that the other day we were talking about this, sort of, with my father. He was explaining us how when he was younger, he almost died drowned where there was not more than a meter deep. He panicked and instead of pulling the leg down so he'd reach the ground, he thought he was deeper and he'd die. The same happened to me, I thought nothing I could do would save me and I never tried (until the very last moment –if at the very beginning I had speeded up nothing would have happened).
And another funny thing is that less than a week earlier I was talking with a friend and we decided which animals should disappear of the Earth. Insects, all of them. And also rats, mice, slugs (not snails though) and dogs (yeah, dogs... she didn't mind, I do). Ah, I forgot and city doves.
Anyway... my sister and I went to the Primary Attention Centre (small hospital for emergencies and family medicine). There happened the real thing. It was horrible. I had the anti-tetanus and the antidote jabs. The last one was the worse, it really hurt me. Moreover it was on my bottom (she was telling me I shouldn't complain as I have a tattoo in my bottom and I have a piercing in my tongue, though I just don't like needles).
So I went home (half an hour before having to be back at work which I arrived over an hour late –I called my boss before, of course). I was very tired. I had a bath so I would relax. Still I was in shock. It had been horrible. I was very upset. My sister and I were jocking, actually, about all of this. I was saying that I couldn't care less about the trees and nature. I am a city guy! Fuck exercising! Or at least, I will enrol in a gym: that's why they invented them, so there are no bees around.

Update:

I forgot to say two things.
One is that the owners of the bees are from Fundació Onada, an association of people with Down Syndrome and such. They called the hospital asking if anyone had gone with bee stings. The hospital called me and I called them. They were actually worried. They invited my sister and I to go to the atelier (not for the beekeeping thing, but other kind of activities). So that was very nice. (Read here.)
The other thing is that since then I am very afraid of any kind of flying insect. Like that night, when I went to bed, a fly was around and I got so scared that I had to go under the sheets: my heart was going non-stop. And on Sunday we went to the country for an Argentinian asado (more or less a barbecue) and I was freaking out about every bee that I was seeing. This is actually scaring me a lot.

Ammendment
I made a mistake with the name of the association. Now it is ammended and linked.

2 comments:

coque said...

that's one (of the many many reasons) i don't like exercising :P
hope you feel better now.
k.

Habibi said...

Yes, I do feel better. Though, my body still hurts for the exaggerated emission of adrenaline. Thank you very much.