Saturday, August 29, 2009


CREEPY
CRITTER
AUDACITY
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Several years ago, I read somewhere that our Indian tribes used to draw the poison out of scorpion-stings, by covering them with the flesh of a prickly-pear cactus leaf, so I carefully (they're full of really long needles!) took one of those leaves apart, cut out the thick green interior gook, wrapped it in foil, and put it in my freezer.

This week, I thanked myself for having done that, because while I was pushing cement into some empty spaces in the wood around my front door, a scorpion attacked one of my fingers. I thought I would freak out with fear, since I had no idea what that sting might cause, but I remained amazingly calm, called my MD to catch him 10 minutes before he'd have left for the entire weekend, wrapped my finger in the foil-covered prickly-pear-gook from my freezer, and drove off.
My MD didn't get excited either. He said that nothing horrific would happen to my brain (I had asked him if I'd get totally weirded out) and that all I needed, was to get a tetanus-shot. Which I got, of course. After which I went back home again and kept that prickly-pear-gook around my finger for the next 6 hours, after which all the burning sensation of the sting had vanished.

A really pleasant thought, is that when winter arrived in a couple of months, this scorpion would for sure have crawled over the half-an-inch that separated it from getting inside my home, from where it might have created a whole lot of totally spookier harm!

And another pleasant thought is that I have now made it through an experience I had kinda secretly worried about during all the years that I've lived in the Southwest and heard all those fabricated scorpion-horror-stories with which some nasty individuals just love to scare innocent newcomers!

UPDATE 1
72 hours after I saw my MD, the sting began to hurt again, so I used a needle and tweezers to open it up and to pull out some white stuff that I assumed to be left-over poison. Then I held a clorox-dipped cotton ball against it for a while, and went online, where I discovered:

1.....Scorpion venom contains the neurotoxin CLOROTOXIN
which appears to effectively destroy brain tumors :-) :-) :-)

2.....I should have saved the offending scorpion
in a closed glass jar so it could be identified

3.....The National Poison Control Call-in-Center's
phone number is: 1-800-222-1222

4.....I should take an antihistamine pill.....so I swallowed
a BENADRYL, slept like a baby, and when I woke up,
all the pain and swelling had left.

UPDATE 2
Every 5 days, or so, my scorpion-bite swells up again, while showing a tiny hill of white poison underneath the skin. So each time, I open it up with a needle, and use my tweezers to pull out that white stuff. It seems that the poison needs to leave my body, and that my body needs to push it out. A perfect and complimentary kind of need, don't you agree? Anyway....I figured I'd share this information, since it seems to be important.
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