A Scorpion at School

​It started at around 6:30am, when I was getting my stuff together to head off for a busy work day. I planned to teach Hebrew to nine theological school students from 7am to 9am, then go straight to the translation center to work on parallel passages checks with the translators of the Sara Kaba Dem Bible until 5pm. This schedule always made for a long work day, but it was work I enjoyed and wanted to do, so I was looking forward to it. 

As I gathered my things, I suddenly remembered that the previous class session, I had misplaced one of my class notebooks at home. I looked around and located the missing notebook, and shoved it into my school backpack with the others. Unknown to me, there was a stowaway in that bag: a scorpion had somehow found his way inside, at some point when my backpack was sitting around not properly zipped up. When I shoved the notebook into the backpack, I disturbed him and he crawled up higher and hung out near the zipper. It was a disaster waiting to happen. 

About ten minutes later, I arrived at school. Good: none of the students had arrived yet. I always liked to be early when I could, even though most Chadian professors typically arrive at the last minute, after the students are already there. But I’ve always been an early bird, and anyway I like a little extra time to get my class material together and look over my notes, so I tend to come early. 

I unzipped my backpack and reached for my class notebooks. I didn’t even get my hand in far enough to pull out the notebooks when I felt something like a pinprick at the tip of my right ring finger. Yeouch! What was that? I couldn’t see anything there. Was there a pin stuck near the zipper that poked me? But that didn’t make sense. Why would there be a pin in my backpack? I had never even put so much as a safety pin in that backpack. 

And now I could feel a burning, tingling sensation in my finger. It must have been some kind of insect… an ant? There are large stinging ants in Chad, rather like the Bulldog Ants we had in Australia; I’ve been stung by these Chadian ants before. But their stings hurt for a few minutes and then subside quickly. This pain was getting worse by the minute - it was already far worse than any ant sting I’d experienced. My finger was already starting to swell and turn red. I began to think it must have been a scorpion: nothing else I could think of in Chad would be this painful, except maybe a large centipede or snake, which are big enough that I would surely have noticed them. 

By now I was pacing the room, shaking my hand up and down as though to shake off the pain. I pulled out my small water bottle, fresh from the freezer (cold but not frozen), and stuck my finger in it to try to reduce the burning sensation. Not the most hygienic thing to do maybe, but I was starting to feel desperate from the pain. This cooled my finger a little, but didn’t really help much. 

Now the first of the nine Hebrew students showed up: Sody. A little fellow just over five feet tall and about 110 pounds, unusually small for a man in a country where most men are over six feet tall. He’s a feisty little guy but good-hearted and a good friend. He greeted me cheerfully but then immediately saw something was wrong. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. 

“Something stung me in my backpack. A scorpion maybe. It really hurts.” 

Sody looked very concerned, and quickly went to my backpack and began to search it - very carefully. A couple more students showed up and helped him. They shook out the backpack vigorously, and finally shook out the culprit: the scorpion stowaway! They quickly squashed it, which was a little comfort. At least now the scorpion was worse off than I was! And I wouldn’t have to worry about that particular stowaway again. 

But by now, I was in agonizing pain. My finger burned like a thousand fires and tingled like pins and needles, and yet was also going numb. It seems strange to say that it burned and felt numb at the same time, but that’s how it felt. The burning sensation was creeping up my hand toward the wrist. I sat on a chair near the door and was soon awash in tears of pain. I began to sweat profusely. 

More students arrived and were soon informed that Sister Anna had been stung by a scorpion. They all felt very worried. Nassars (foreigners of European or Asian ancestry) have such weak constitutions, they reasoned. When a nassar gets malaria or typhoid, he often gets it bad, much worse than for most Chadians, and he is more likely to suffer complications. Perhaps Sister Anna would suffer more from a scorpion sting than most Chadians do. The students began to feel panicky. Raymond, an older student who walked with a limp, dashed off in spite of his limp to look for a razorblade, with the idea of carrying out a home remedy which involved making an incision near the site of the sting. The other students hovered around anxiously. Someone went to summon Jacob, the student body president, who wasn’t in the class but his house is next door to the theological school. It’s his job to take charge in such situations, which he always does with gentle, humble leadership. 

Meanwhile, I was still sitting sweating and in tears of agony on the chair by the door, only half aware of all the bustle around me. I wasn’t losing consciousness at all, but the pain was so excruciating that it kind of took over and I just wasn’t paying attention to anything else. I was starting to feel a bit short of breath and slightly nauseous, which at the time I just attributed to a result of the pain, but later an internet search on scorpion stings showed these as among the more severe symptoms of a scorpion sting. The burning sensation had now crept past my wrist and was slowly making its way up my forearm. 

I was in such pain that I wasn’t even thinking about what to do, or really anything but the pain. Seeing this, Jacob along with Gédeon (a former high school principal and a real go-getter), took charge of the situation to decide what to do. One of the students - I don’t remember now if it was Sody or Jacob - came to me where I was still sitting in agony by the door. I was so overwhelmed with pain that his voice seemed far away. 

“We’re taking you to the health center,” he said, meaning the small village medical dispensary (like a clinic) near the school. I realized then that I should have thought of that myself but I was in such pain that I wasn’t thinking straight. The village medical clinic isn’t fantastic, but for common African health problems like malaria and typhoid and scorpion stings, they are able to do the basic necessary care. 

“Okay,” I agreed. 

So we all trooped over to the dispensary. The students offered to help me walk but although I was a little dizzy, I was able to walk okay. There wasn’t really a need for all ten or so students to go with me, but this is what you do in Chad. When a friend is sick, you go with her and make sure she has what she needs and doesn’t feel alone. 

The dispensary nurses quickly tied a latex glove around my arm as a makeshift tourniquet and proceeded to inject a couple of different medicines. Along with the regular nurse, they had a new intern there who didn’t know me, but he tried to be gentle. 

“This is a necessary pain,” he said apologetically as he prepared the needle. In spite of his efforts to be gentle, he struggled with his inexperience and it took him three or four tries to get the first injection into my finger near the site of the sting, which was no fun, but I was in too much pain to make any protest except to wince. He then injected another medicine into my other arm, and with that he was done. 

I wondered if I was supposed to just go home now and wait it out until the pain subsided, but they clearly didn’t want to release me that quickly. I was no longer in tears, but I was still sweating profusely, so they fanned me with woven grass fans as I sat on a dispensary bench. Then they brought me into the inside room where there were a couple beds for urgent cases and urged me to lie down and rest while they kept up the fanning, taking turns. They found an ice pack, which helped to cool the burning sensation in my hand. I could feel that the scorpion venom had now crept as far as my shoulder, but the pain didn’t get any worse and actually subsided a lot, so I didn’t complain. 

After about half or three-quarters of an hour, Gédeon, Jacob, and Sody took charge again. They decided to take me to a better-quality clinic in Sarh to see if they could offer any additional treatment. One of them called my driver, Tara, and he soon arrived with my truck. But the clinic in town had nothing else to suggest except what the village dispensary had already done, so we headed home. During this trip back and forth to town, the burning pain in my hand started up again, though not quite as bad or widespread as it had been at first. 

In the meantime, my missionary coworkers from Sarh arrived in Balimba with additional medication for the pain if it continued to persist. Armed with these, I went home, made myself a drink, settled myself on the futon-couch in the living room, and tried to distract myself with my iPad. 

The severe pain continued until after 10am. At that point, I fell asleep, and when I woke, the swelling and burning was very much less. After that, it continued to decrease by the hour, until by the evening the pain was mostly gone. As I write now, the only noticeable effects are some muscle aches in my hand and arm up to my shoulder. Also a pretty bad case of insomnia, which is why I’m writing this now! 

From time to time throughout the day, students from the theological school and coworkers from the Bible translation work and other friends stopped by or called to see how I was doing. Because in Chad, you not only go with a friend to the clinic to make sure she’s okay, you also visit afterwards to see how she’s doing and to pray with her. Chadians make you feel very loved and cared for when you are sick! 

The effects of scorpion stings are quite variable, from all that I’ve heard from my friends here. For some people, it’s little worse than a bee sting, while others are in agony for 2-3 days. I fell somewhere in between the two: four hours of severe pain, and about six hours of moderate to mild pain, and after that only mild discomfort which I’m sure will wear off as well. 

So I’m thankful that it wasn’t any worse, and I’m thankful for my friends who watch out for me, and for the unexpected day of rest, which I hadn’t planned on but God apparently knew I needed! And I’m thankful for all of you who read my posts and pray for me.