We had a very scary experience last night. As my daughter came down the stairs for dinner, she complained that she stepped on something. We looked, but could only see what looked like a little sliver, and we could not get it out, even with a tweezers. She sat at dinner, but was not hungry and went to take a shower. Not five minutes later she came out, wrapped in a towel and said something was wrong. Her face was swelling and her foot was angry red and huge.

I told her to put clothes back on immediately and my Dh took her to the hospital. But they didn't get far before he called 911 and the EMTs met him along the road. They administered an epi-pen and took her in the ambulance to the hospital. They hooked her up to an IV to administer more meds and kept her several hours for observation.

She was incredibly pale, and her eyes almost swelled shut, her ears ballooned, as did her lips, and she was entirely covered in hives. She swears that during the whole ordeal she never had difficulty breathing, so we're grateful for that, but there are never any guarantees if there are future reactions.

Most frustrating is that we don't know what it was. The doctor extracted what looked like a stinger, but even after searching the stairs and her room, we cannot find any insects. So we're operating under the assumption it was a bee. We now have epi pens and oral meds for her to take if there are any future reactions.

And last, while I am grateful to live in a time when science can give us medicines to stop reactions like this from being deadly, I am outraged that epi-pens (the generic versions) are $150 each when the vial of medicine and a syringe is $5. Small price to pay for the peace of mind the pen gives in an emergency, but it really is holding people's lives ransom. The medication itself isn't expensive, but the method of administration has people over a barrel because no one is prepared to use a vial and syringe when their eyes are swelling shut.