« Speaking of concerts, | Main | crazy weekend sans apples »
September 22, 2004
creepy scary not halloweeny
I talked to my father today, who told me that my brother had been bit by a brown recluse spider, one of six poisonous spiders in the US. They are common back out west, as are black widows and we used to see them all over the place. I remember black widows in our basement even, and we just knew to stay away from them.
So my father is telling me about this as I'm driving home from work (with a headset mind you). Apparently Chase got bit several days ago and finally, two days ago he showed my dad and at that time it was a hard nodule raised about four inches off the skin, with a swollen red ring and a brown mark in the center where he had been bit. My father wigged out and told him to get to the doctor, but Chase doesn't have medical insurance so he was balking. In the morning though, it was bad enough that he told his boss (he's a foreman at a construction company)--his boss made him work the whole day first. So after work he went to a "doc-in-a-box" as my father calls them, just a local emergency center.
Well, of course they were highly concerned and immediately went in to dig it out. They had to dig out the nodule, which was at least an inch under the skin as well. They gave him a shot in the cheek (did my father mean actual cheek or asscheek?) and then three localized shots as well as drugs to take overnight. He went back today and they were going to have to dig more out. Apparently it's more severe than they thought.
But as my father was telling me this, I had to have him stop, because I was driving and I've noticed, as I get older, when I hear or see things sort of "disturbing" I get extremely nauseus and faint. This has happened a few times, once while reading "The Penal Colony" on the bus, once when I saw a co-worker have an epileptic fit, once when watching a movie at a film festival about heroin junkies, and a few other times. I'm not talking about seeing a horror film that's violent or anything, but rather more cerebral things, or things related to people close to me or by people close to me. So as I'm hearing about the bite and them digging it out, I feel my stomach starting to get queasy. Had to shut my father off in mid-sentence. I think he thought I was insane. Instead I told him that the place I'm contracting at wants to hire me! So that was good and when I got to the grocery store, I let him tell me the rest of the story.
When I got home, I wanted to find out more about what happens when people get bit. Oh my god, oh my god. I still feel so completely sick. I just hope to god that my brother got help in time.
Here is one URL (of several I found), but BE WARNED NOT FOR THE QUEASY: Brown Recluse Spider Bites
Please keep him in your thoughts.
Posted by crystallyn at September 22, 2004 07:36 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.crystallyn.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/307
Comments
Poor your brother. I will keep him in my prayers that the bite was treated in a timely fashion.
And I'm thrilled that you're getting a permanent position!
Posted by: Ancarett at September 23, 2004 07:51 AM
The spider on your page made me jump. I really don't like them. Unbelieveable how something that small can do that much damage to a person. Hopefully your brother will come through this ok and that he was treated quickly enough.
Grats on the job!
Posted by: Mary /ann at September 23, 2004 01:26 PM
Like kraits. ugh. tiny & deadly. ugh ugh ugh.
*shivvvvvvvver
Posted by: Shanna at September 24, 2004 10:47 PM
how long willit take for a brown recluse to kill you, and how do you know if you get bitten
Posted by: thomas casey at March 2, 2006 08:52 PM