PBP 2015: A beating on the head

I departed Tintinéac outbound at about 2:40pm on Monday, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. I stopped briefly at Quédillac, a non-control refreshment stop, about an hour and a half later. Loudéac, my first goal and my first sleep, lay several hours farther down the road.

I rode solo for much of this stretch. Half an hour or so past Quédillac, I turned onto a slightly bigger road, and was riding along at a good clip into a little bit of wind.

That's when it happened. I caught a brief glimpse of a bug flying toward my head; a split second later I heard the THWACK, felt the impact against my scalp, and, at the very same instant, felt a terrible, terrible pain!

This story occurs along the blue segment highlighted on the map.

I pulled over right away and ripped off my helmet. The attacker was gone, but had left me quite a present on the front right top of my head. I hadn't been stung since I was a kid, but the pain was surprisingly intense, much worse than any sting I could remember.

Was the stinger still in? Had it been a wasp? Seems like it's swelling a little already...am I allergic? How much might it swell? Owwww!

The Loudéac control with its first aid station was still hours away, and there I was in the middle of the countryside. Was this going to be a problem? Would it just go away? Ow! I decided that the thing to do was to just advance and see what happened.

Sometimes problems make new problems. Before taking off, I sent my family a brief text of my status:

Add nine hours for local time in France.

Thanks to autocorrect, "beesting," typo'd as a single word, had become "beating." Oops.

The little bugger (and the pain) had given me a fabulous adrenaline rush, and I found myself setting a noticeably faster pace! I was a little panicked. The pain from the sting continued to be intense, but at least it served to distract my attention from my sore knees and Achilles tendons.

When is this going to let up? Will it swell? Am I allergic? I don't even see other riders around right now...

Then it happened, barely ten minutes after the sting, as I rounded a corner and pumped the pedals into the little village of Saint-Méen-le-Grand:

I couldn't believe it: a pharmicie lay dead ahead, literally blocking my trajectory!

I didn't have to think twice. I leaned my bike outside, doffed my helmet, entered, and...

Bonjour Madame, quelque chose de bizarre vient de se passer: une abeille ou un guèpe m'a attaqué!

I pointed to my head, and the pharmacienne revealed that she could see quite clearly that the sting was reddened and swollen, and that the dart was no longer there.

She went to the shelf to grab hydrocortisone ointment, and we rendez-vous'd at the register. She gave me instructions, and then asked if I'd like her to apply it for me. OUI, s'il vous plaît, merci!

There was a little treatment room in back. She disinfected the area and applied the cream; I thanked her profusely and gave her one of my little wooden tokens.

What incredible luck: sting-to-treatment in about a quarter of an hour!

I got my phone out to text an update to my family. That's when I learned of the autocorrect gaffe:

Add nine hours for local time in France.

I soon began to feel relief; the ointment seemed to be working. I applied it several more times before the end of the day, and, by the next day, the beating...er, bee sting! was nearly forgotten.

So many different kinds of help, big and small, from so many people on this ride; truly fabulous. And, once again, the language thing: I really did find that having some facility with the language can really help out a bunch. I will keep studying to improve before 2019...and I will also try to learn to be more careful with autocorrect!