As I come to the end of Februray I look back at what has been a crazy month. It started with my recovery in hospital and ended with me looking into a future which looks rather bleak.

My Dilemna

The dilemna is simple: I am so sensitive to wasp and hornet venom that desensitization simply seems to be too dangerous and even if tried, would not protect me in time for the arrival of these insects in the next few weeks. I am therefore left in a predicament - what sort of life do I lead?

Should I leave the house for important events only? What sort of event counts as important? Should I just go for it and enjoy life regardless of my problem? What about my garden? How do I earn a living? What about exercise and golf? Can we go on holiday? The questions are endless and at the moment I just don't have a clue what to do. The sight of my first wasp will be very scary - its easy to say be cool, but not when this little creature could cause me serious damage. Let's be honest - the next sting will kill me unless I am right outside a high quality A & E department. Its tough to admit, but I am staring death in the face for the first time in my life.

I am not scared of death at all. My faith and personal experience has fully convinced me that there is no reason for me to fear death. I just fear the pain of the anaphylaxis and the grief it will cause my fantastic wife and children - I pray that they are not around to witness my death which would be horrible for them.

It has taken me all of February to get over the physical shock of the anaphylaxis and whilst I still feel tired, at least I am eating and the 10 lbs I lost in hospital has started to return. I am also off the steroids which were making me feel very unwell and am now just stuck with taking anti-histamines which will at least reduce the allergic reaction a little bit in the event I get stung.

Mentally, I am coming to terms with what happened to me and the prospects for the future, but it is much, much harder for my wife than it is for me. She has to live with the consequences of my death, the sadness and the loneliness will be horrible for her and I grieve at that thought. Coping with two devestated children will also be very hard and I can only pray in advance that in the event of my death she will be strengthened and comforted by the Almighty. It is extraordinary that you can't have love on the one hand, without suffering on the other.

In the meantime, I am still searching for the treatment that will rid me of this horrible allergy. This website has been a great help and has had over 1000 visitors from all over the world in its first three weeks. I have had e-mails from all over the world offering help and support which has been wonderful. As yet, there is no traditional treatment that has been offered, and so I am going to try alternative medicines such as homeopathy and kinesis.

I am also thinking seriously about going to the press about my predicament and sharing my experience in the hope that it galvanises others into doing something about the amazing knowledge gap that exists about insect sting allergies.

APRIL

Well, the beginning of April has arrived and so have the first signs of Spring - including my enemy, the wasp! I have to say though that in some ways it is more comforting to have an enemy that we can now fight and direct our frustration against. We have been very busy putting up insect screens, looking for different forms of wasp repellents, and generally deciding what we can and can't do with our lives.

Of course that is not say that the medical journey has ended - I am now looking at having rush immunotherapy in Europe which is a form of treatment that we don't really offer here in the UK. Basically under intensive care conditions I will be injected with a really miniscule amount of venom which will be increased gradually every 30 minutes for a number of days until I reach a roughly satisfactory level. The danger is that I will have an anaphylactic reaction, but the safety is simply that I am there in intensive care with all the modern equipment and skills around me. It would however be enormously disappointing if it did go wrong since in many ways this is, I think, virtually the end of the road for orthodox medical treatment.

I have had fun during March and April looking for alternative therapies: I have tried homeopathy and kinesis: both methods of treatment are difficult to understand and rationalise but I feel a lot better now than I did, so who knows! I am also doing something which is definitely helping - visitng a gym and getting fit. I actually feel better than I have felt in years, which is quite ironic really.

The Insect Stings website gives me great pleasure - from a standing start on 14 February 2002 we are now attracting many hundreds of visitors each week - from all over the world. Some have joined the personal mailing list whilst others have kindly written to me offering lots of advice and thoughts. Shock and trauma is a hard thing to cope with but I feel the desperation of February, and my writing then reflects it, has now been replaced by the traditional British stiff-upper lip that life must go on.

And thank goodness it does.

I will be posting up any news about my treatment on the website and mailing the list which all visitors are very welcome to join.

Thank you for your continued interest!