I go to sleep with my left hand on my heart, my right on Jane’s butt. 

This morning at three thirty, I woke from pain in my exposed paw, the one I left on my partners tush. 

It was the sharp radiation of an insect bite, maybe a spider or blood sucking mosquito. 

This summer the mosquitoes are smaller and angrier. They bite through clothing. They sting fast and hard. 

In the old days, a mosquito would lounge and suck, eventually smacked and crushed in a bloody pile of tangled legs and wings. 

There were multiple pain points, first on the side of my hand near my wrist, then my pinkie, the knuckles, my thumb, the one bulging vein on the top, where the IV was the last time I was in the ER. 

How is this happening. I cannot sleep. My left hand is no help. The pain gets worse.  In the dark I stumble down the hall and steps to my bathroom. There is an old bottle of Calamine lotion. Covered in pink, there is some relief. 

Two minutes later, the dusty layer bounces over my now throbbing limb. I have another tube of something not toothpaste that’s natural and safe and all that. I schmutz it all over, right on top of the pink dust. It’s cool. It’s got a freshness about it. Maybe it is toothpaste. 

All I can think of is a bucket of ice water, but I have no bucket. Jane probably has a bucket, but I cannot wake her for this lame crisis. 

I turn on the coffee pot. Turn on the toaster. Turn on the cold water. Let it run cold as it will get. I didn’t know how cold it could get. My hand now hurt from the cold. So now full blast the other way. Pretty sure the water could cook broccoli or brew tea. But I’m waiting for toast and coffee, and instead scald my hand. 

Alternating temperature extremes has numbed everything, can’t feel a thing. Finally, I return to bed where Jane is snoring up a storm. Often these mid-sleep episodes subside when I put my hand back on her butt. That is not happening.