Even though I am the youngest in my family, I always seem to be the first to experience new viruses - e.g. mumps, measles, german measles, etc. I was also the only one that had appendicitis and had to be operated on when I was 9 years old. Anyway, last week, I became the first in my family to be bitten by a spider. What a harrowing experience. I was supposed to go out for dinner with some colleagues after work and I was just heading back to my hotel room and walking up the stairs whilst searching for my keycard at the same time. Suddenly I felt an electric jolt on my left hand all the way up my arm. I glanced at my hand and saw a light brown spider (about the size of a quarter) gnawing me. I shrieked and pushed the spider off and dashed into my room. I started washing my hands in hope that I would wash it all away but I noticed I was bitten twice! One on my wrist and another one on the side of my hand. Both started swelling and it was painful! Dang!
I rushed to my colleague's room where we were all supposed to meet up before dinner and when I told them what happened, someone said that there was a poisonous spider lurking around where we were staying and that someone else at work had been bitten too. We quickly googled "spider bites first aid" and found out that there are 2 poisonous species in our area - the black widow and the brown recluse. I looked at the picture of the brown recluse and went... OH SHIT! That looked exactly like the damn spider that bit me. Anyway, we (all 10 of us) went to the minute clinic just across the street. This was what she said "ohhhh... you were bitten.... ohhhh!! It looks swollen!". OK, I'm not a doctor but this woman was just stating the obvious. She referred us to an Urgent Care clinic because they were not allowed to treat spider bites.
So we left in search of the Urgent Care clinic - I was holding a wet kitchen cloth with ice cubes pressed to my hand. We found the clinic and me and my entourage went in and I got registered. It took another couple of hours, an antibiotic shot, a tetanus shot, a prescription of antibiotics and vicodin before I got out of there.
Managed to get my dinner around 11 pm that night. I'm traumatised. I'm glad I wasn't alone though. A big thank you goes out to my colleagues that helped me through the night.
Update: (22/7/2008)
I still look like this:
And not like this:
