The Curse of the Centipede

I was telling my brother about our cousin, Lorna's awful centipede attacks. I was shocked to hear she'd been bitten 5 times.

I've never been bitten/stung by a centipede. Actually, when I looked at a close-up photo we took of the centipede, I couldn't figure out if they bite or sting. I found this on Wikipedia:

A centipede bite is an injury resulting from the action of a centipede's forcipules, stinger-like appendages that pierce the skin and inject venom into the wound. Such a wound is not strictly speaking a bite, as the forcipules are a modified first pair of legs rather than true mouthparts. Clinically, the wound is viewed as a cutaneous condition characterized by paired hemorrhagic marks that form a chevron shape caused by the paired forcipules.

The centipede's venom causes pain and swelling in the area of the bite, and may cause other reactions throughout the body. The majority of bites are not life-threatening to humans and present the greatest risk to children and those who develop allergic reactions.

Anyway, Dennis had an even more awful (for him definitely) story to tell me. 

I worked at the pineapple cannery when I was in High School. It was extremely exhausting work and we carry it as a badge of honor for having done it.

However, there were no centipedes in the cannery that I could see.

Dennis, on the other hand toiled in the sugar cane fields. I have no idea why he chose the cane fields to the cannery. (This is a picsart generated photo.)

One day, as he walked through the fields he felt something crawling up his pant leg. It crawled up one pant leg and luckily went past the part that's very important to guys and then decided to sting him there. 

My brother is very allergic to bee and other insect venom like my mom. His leg swelled to an alarming degree and he had to be taken to the hospital.

"Wouldn't you know….” he said.  "They sent in a young intern to check me out? And it was a woman!!!”

I guess she must have administered something like an epinephrine because he survived that mishap. 

I imagine this must be why he made a career out of working in a sterile police photo lab where he would be far removed from any other stings or bites.

I don't remember ever getting a really bad reaction to bites or stings, but my daughter is just like her uncle and grandmother. I guess they have my mom to blame for this possibly genetic predisposition. Luckily, Tiffany also works in an office away from centipedes or bees or whatever. Oops! But they do have mosquitoes in Illinois. 😕

POSTSCRIPT: I asked my brother why he chose to work in the fields. He said that cannery workers were being offered $1.75 an hour but sugar plantation workers could get $2.25. He's 3 years younger than me. I don't remember being paid $1.75 a hour to work in the cannery. It was MUCH less. 😏