MONICA GETS STUNG BY A SCORPION

Well, we certainly have not seen a ton of scorpions here in Panama, but we have seen a few.  Last week, Monica came into our bedroom in the middle of the night, whimpering, and complaining that her arm and ear hurt because she had been bitten by some type of bug.  She said that she didn't see the bug, but felt its pinchers and said that she had to pry it off her.  I took a look at her arm and ear, and sure enough, there were small welts or marks.  Monica was particularly upset about the pain on her ear and said that it was burning and felt as if someone had lit a match to it.  I gave her some Benadryl, thinking that this would help ease the reaction of the bite and also gave her some Motrin for the pain.  I went into her bedroom with a flashlight, to check her bed, thinking to myself, "I wonder if she was stung by a scorpion?"  I didn't find anything, so we all just went back to bed.

Well, last night Monica had quite a surprise.  Just minutes after she and Matt went to bed, Greg and I heard Monica whimpering again, and this time, Monica felt and saw a scorpion wriggle across her chest.  Just as Monica was telling Greg to "Get it off, get it out of here...!", I hear Matt saying, "I want to keep it, I want to keep it...Can I keep it for a pet?"  Greg calmly scooped up the scorpion (about 2 inches long) and put it in Matt's giant plastic jar with holes on the top, where Matt's other scorpion resides.  Lucky Matt now has not one pet scorpion, but TWO!

The scorpion on the left is the one that we suspect stung Monica, and the one on the right is Matt's pet that was found on his pillow a month ago.