I was in a half-awake state, and all I knew for sure was that my hands were itching and burning. Finally I came to my senses and thought that perhaps itchy and burning hands weren’t a normal thing, so I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. It was about 2:15m. When I turned on the light I could see that there was a gigantic white bite mark on my right wrist, surrounded by red. On my left hand there were two bites on my pinky and another on my index finger. The itching and burning was just getting worse, so I took a couple swigs of Benedryl. I went back in and looked in my bed to see if there was anything in my bed, but I didn’t find anything. My left hand was slowly getting swollen, so I called my Dad to see what I should do. He told me to go to the emergency room.
The Plymouth Hospital Emergency room is… about the sketchiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s in the back of the hospital, patient parking is all the way across a poorly lit parking lot, and the ER itself has maybe three rooms. There was only one nurse on duty, who seemed oblivious to the fact that my left hand was throbbing and my fingers were purple, or that my right arm throbbed all the way up to my elbow. A doctor eventually came in, said that I’d done the right thing by taking Benedryl, added ibuprophen to that list of medication I should take to reduce the swelling. He said he was pretty sure it was a spider bite, but couldn’t be sure what kind. Then he told me to come back if any of the bites started to turn black. Then I was sent home.
I got home at about 5am. The cat thought it was time to play. He was wrong. The fingers and knuckles on my left hand still ache, and my right arm/wrist are still achy too. I called in to work, simply because I’m so damn exhausted. The principal told me to just rest up and he’d see me tomorrow. I feel badly though, because today was the follow up meeting regarding the child with Autism.
Three cheers for spiders.
)
