Ouch, the Slide Bites!

As my children played in our backyard last night, my husband and I heard an ear piercing scream from our son. My kitchen window faces the backyard. Everything was fine when I peeked out to check the kids the second before. My husband was outside watching the kids, but stepped inside for a moment. He hurried outside and met my son in the yard. My son was holding his hand and saying, "my hand got hurt, I put my hand under the slide and it got hurt." His hand was red and swelling quickly. After I took my screaming child from my husband, he peeked under the slide and discovered a small yellow jacket nest. He killed the nest by dousing it in wasp killer while I tended to my son.

I wanted to put some ice on his rapidly swelling hand. We have a cute ice pack that the kids love, but my daughter had used it earlier in the day, so it was not frozen. I started to grab a bag of frozen corn, when my husband discovered something far better. Earlier in the day, my husband mistakenly froze a coke. I poured the thawed part into a glass for myself just minutes before our drama unfolded. My husband took the can with the remaining frozen slush and handed it to my son and let him drink it. Holding the partially frozen can served two purposes, it was ice to his hand and sweet goodness to his mouth. The sweet goodness distracted him from the pain. Drinking a cherry coke is an extreme treat at our house considering the sweetest stuff he ever gets to drink is watered down apple juice. After a few minutes, he reported to us that his hand was all better. I gave him Benadryl right after he came in screaming. I followed up with Tylenol following his declaration of "all better." After examining his hand we discovered 3 possibly 4 strings.
We proceeded with dinner. During dinner my son started getting very groggy. By this time, he was feeling the full effects of the Benadryl. At one point, he kept trying to tell me something. It sounded like, "I want to take the mmm...to bed". He repeated it over and over. I responded to him, "Son, I don't know what you are trying to say." To which he replied, "I don't know what I'm trying to say either." He finished dinner, crawled into my arms and fell asleep.

I checked on him several times during the night. The swelling did not get any worse. By this morning, the swelling was significantly reduced. We asked him several times today if his hand hurt and he continued to tell us it was fine. We are very thankful he was not severely allergic to bee strings. We also thankful that his pain seemed to be short lived. Lastly, we are thankful for a partially frozen can of cherry coke on the counter that makes everything "all better."