I HATE Fire Ants!

You don't want to skip this post.......

FireAnts
Who Are These Fiends?
Fire ants are known for their lively and aggressive behavior, swarming over anyone or anything that disturbs their nest, often attacking wild animals, baby animals, pets or people, in some instances, even killing them. Their painful stings affect about 40 percent of people in infested areas each year. 20 million people a year are stung by fireants!
When these pesky critters invade an area, they do it with a vengeance. There will be enormous numbers of them which can dramatically reduce populations of native ants, other insects, and even ground-nesting wildlife. Watch out. They invade homes, school yards, athletic fields, golf courses, and parks. They will damage crops and electrical equipment, costing humans huge amounts of money each year in repairs and eradication.

The Southern Pest
The red fire ant was accidentally introduced into the United States in 1929, when a cargo ship that had used soil as ballast arrived in Mobile, Alabama from South America. (Thanks a lot!) But South Americans don't have nearly the problem that the United States does. They only have 20% as many fireants as we do, probably because North America lacks the natural enemies of the pesky critters.
These guys are aggressive! They initially spread throughout Alabama and Florida, but it didn't take them long to invade twelve of our southeastern states and Puerto Rico. In recent years, the fireant has spread as far west as California and as far north as Kansas and Maryland. Today the fireant habitat in the USA covers 300 million acres and it is growing all the time. Although fireants keep marching farther and farther, northerners don't have to loose sleep over it because researches predict that they will not be able to survive in areas where soil temperatures drop to near freezing for more than 2 to 3 weeks.

SO, with all that information & obviously y'all have seen the pictures of my foot, about a month ago, I was brutally ATTACKED by these wicked, unruly insects! A friend of mine had stopped by to say hi as we were outside minding out own business hanging the Christmas lights on the house. I walked over to talk to her & seeing that it was almost 80 degrees, I had on my flip flops. There was no sign of fire ants anywhere. You can't miss their mounds of dirt that pop up in the yard warning you that millions of these nasty creatures are lurking nearby ready to attack! As I was enjoying my conversation with my friend, I looked down at my lovely feet & saw that I was COVERED in FIRE ANTS! Now, I have been bitten several times by them & have been just fine. They leave a nasty little pimple like thing that itches & burns like crazy, but is bearable for the most part. I thought I had gotten by with maybe only one bite. WRONG! I was covered in bites. I started to panic a bit cause I am an itcher---I itch til it bleeds! Any how, my friend went to her house to get me some benadryl cream. She came back & as we were sitting in my front room, I started to itch like crazy. First it was my armpits, then my head, then my neck. I looked in my armpits & about freaked out! I looked like I had elephantitis in my armpits! There were HUMUNGO welts & I truly thought I was done for! I thought I would not be leaving my house for days & days! Then my head had welts all over it & then my face broke out in welts, they were even coming out of my nostrils! Not a pretty sight! I flipped out & thought Kiley would be a bit more concerned. But he remained calm, too calm! :) He told me to settle down, take some benadryl & I would be fine. He said that as long as I didn't start having problems breathing, I'd be just fine. JUST FINE! How could I possibly be just fine looking like a freak show???????? So, instead of believing what my smart husband, who is a doctor & takes care of patients in much worse off scenarios, I called our good pal who is a dermatologist & made him come over. I took the benadryl before hand. Literally by the time he got to our house, I was almost back to normal. He was pretty disappointed, hoping that I was some freak show & even brought his camera to take pictures. I am so sad that we didn't capture all my swollen parts....I think we all would have enjoyed being able to check out those armpits--they were so frightening! With in an hour, I was back to normal EXCEPT for my foot. It was ENORMOUS! Apparently I am allergic to fire ants......oh ya, and Bees! If you check back in a post I made in Nov of 2007, I have a great story about a bee sting that resulted in a HUMUNGO swollen hand (Pic is included below:)).

My foot was so swollen that you couldn't see all the bites, except

for the one higher up.

I couldn't wear a shoe on this foot cause it was so

swollen & it would leave an indentation that didn't

go away very fast!

Yes, this is the result of ONE measly little bee sting...OUCH!