The only thing we have to fear is fear itself… and spiders

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

We’re coming up on five years since I was bitten by a brown recluse. If you’re somehow unfamiliar with this particular type of spider, consider yourself lucky.

It was early October of 2019 and it had turned off a bit chilly, so I slipped on my light jacket, retrieving it from the coat closet that had seen little use since the previous early spring, before heading out to get into the car to go see a movie with my wife.

On the way to the car, I felt a little tickle on my right arm and, figuring it for a loose thread I simply squeezed my sleeve. I felt a slight crunchy noise and realized it must have been a bug. I shook out my sleeve and went about my business.

Later, after dinner and during the movie, I felt some itching at

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that same spot on my arm.

Nothing too serious, but I remember sort of being annoyed that I had almost definitely been bitten by something, probably a spider, as I had some familiarity with the phenomenon, having been bitten by a spider on three other occasions.

After the movie, I went to the restroom there at the theater and examined my arm. Sure enough there was a tell-tale red dot and a little pink circle forming around it. That really only made me more annoyed, because my previous experience led to be to the acceptance that I was now going to have to go spend $30 to go to the doctor to get a steroid shot, an antibiotic shot and a prescription for both to get this taken care of.

I showed my wife when we got home and she was sympathetic but pretty non-plussed about it, since, like I said, this had happened plenty of times before and it had been no big deal — except for the first time it had happened and I had mistakenly assumed it would just get better on its own. Once the red streaks began working their way up my leg and toward my more vital odds and ends, I was fairly easy to convince I needed to seek medical attention.

Now, older and wiser, i was already adamant I would go see the doctor first thing Monday morning. This was Saturday night, so I wasn’t really putting it off. There wouldn’t be anywhere open on Sunday, and based on my previous encounters with the spiders (who seem to just love biting me for some reason), I was pretty sure Monday morning would be plenty soon enough. I was wrong.

I woke up in the middle of the night, nauseous and sweating.

I rushed to the bathroom and immediately vomited. Now, some folks might throw up and it’s no big deal, but if I do it, I’m really, really sick.

I was quick to blame the sushi we had eaten for dinner and the spider bite didn’t even cross my mind. I chalked the sweating up to the apparent digestive discomfort, took a couple of Tums and went back to bed and actually fell back asleep until morning.

My wife had left early for church that morning to practice the music for that Sunday’s service, so she was unaware of my late night distress and she wasn’t around when I woke up with pain in my arm and shortness of breath.

Somehow the spider bite still didn’t occur to me until I went back to the bathroom and looked at my arm. It was bright pink. The whole thing.

And my fingers were swollen and itchy. Examining my arm thoroughly, I saw a distinct red line running along the underside of my arm up to my armpit where it faded into a less bright series of lines that looked like tree roots… or blood vessels.

I texted my wife a photo of my arm along with a message saying that I was not going to be at church that morning. Instead, I was going to the Emergency Room. It was, if nothing else, an opportunity to get my first up-close look at the new Baptist hospital. I felt a little silly going to the ER for a spider bite, but as I sat there waiting to be seen and getting shorter of breath, I was assured i had made the right decision.

Long story short (well, it’s a little late for that) it was confirmed to be a spider bite. In addition to the predicted shots, I also got an IV of antiinflammatory drugs and some pretty potent pain killers.

I won’t gross you out with the weird and wacky healing process a brown recluse bite involves. If you’ve ever seen one, you already know, and if you’ve never seen it, let me just tell you it’s gross and it involves a lit of squeezing and scraping and… you know what? Just use your imagination.

The worst part is how long it took to fully heal. Well, let me correct that. It never really “fully” healed. But a year later, there was still some discoloration and there was some lost of soft tissue that became necrotic.

Note: Do not Google “necrotic” close to dinner time. Again, it’s coming up on two years now, and as I type this, I can look down and see the quarter-sized spot on the underside of my right forearm. It’s purple and sort of shiny and if you look, you can see there’s basically a hollow spot under the skin there.

I mention all of this to say that it’s getting toward the end of summer and before too long you’re going to need to dig that jacket out of the closet. When you do, flip it inside out and give it a good shake.

I haven’t run into any spiders since my bite, but I swear I feel them on me all the time.