Friday, June 6, 2008

Spiders and swelling

These pictures do not fully express the grossness I am dealing with. In my move to a new office, I moved furniture and kicked out the previous tenant who kept a large number of houseplants in the space. When I moved the furniture, vacuumed, and reloaded the room, I made some resident house spiders angry. Unbeknownst to me, three bit me. That night, I became ill with chills, fever, watering eyes, congested sinuses and nausea.
The next day this lovely rash sowed up and the pain began. The dr. sent me for an ultrasound because he thought it might be a blood clot. They also drew blood and found high levels of toxins which is how they found the venom I had been fighting off. The rashy thingy was because one of the bites also placed a funky bacteria under my skin. The Dr., a venomologist (huh?), and four nurses then poked prodded and examined my leg until they found the puncture marks.
It is still twice the size of the other leg but the fevers have finally stopped.

The amazing part is that this variety of spider is very small and is common in homes with houseplants. Usually if someone is bitten, they feel like they have a cold for about 24 hours and that is all. It was the combination of 3 bites and the bacteria that made this so exciting.
The kids are calling me "Spider-Dad" and keep asking me if I can sling a web yet.

2 comments:

Matthan said...

Bummer. That's not cool. Hope you recover quickly.

I am assuming you won't be having any office plants for a long time now.

Missy said...

Oi! I was wondering what Mom was talking about with bacteria-ridden spiders... you poor soul! I got stung by a baterially infected wasp one time and had an ankle the size of a grapefruit. That was bad enough. I can't imagine all the other horridness that went along with your experience! Can they, like, send an exterminator in there for you? Yikes.