The Spider That Came To Dinner

[Shellon]

written in my blog, but the references will be clear to so many here....

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We were involved with a religious something or other for 16 years that did an annual camping thing where others, as well involved, hung for a week listening to some creepy guy preach hell fire and brimstone with a personal touch.

I dreaded the event for the next year, avoided discussing it, cringed at the planning of it and generally was all over hateful of it. But we went. Every. ..... Year.

In 1992 in the planning, we determined that, for the first time actually, we could afford to accommodate ourselves in something other than a tent or sleeping in the back of our truck. We could rent a pop-up ! Still being the cost cutter than I was, I suggested we do so from someone private, saving the deposit fees, using a camper also used by someone we knew and trusted.

Brilliant idea in theory, really it was.

Arrangements made, camper secured to our truck, angry pre-teen along for the 16 hour drive; we were on our way, traveling in a caravan of other week long campers that were also required to attend this stupidness.

Bob set up our new digs while I arranged the outside area, both of us thinking we had hit the big time this year and not to mention we were camping in one of his favorite woods; The Way Woods. While it was, indeed, a beautiful area, amazing scene and in an area of the country we both loved.

I awoke the next morning feeling.......odd; that's the only way I can describe it. I just felt like something was amiss, something was wrong, something was going on that I couldn't put my finger on and if you know me at all, you then know that I don't do well at all if I don't know what's going on, especially when I KNOW something is going on.

The second day, I was sick ! I mean S I C K, bad. High fever, general overall ohdangwhatthematterwithme, just someone please shoot me sick. Given our current surroundings and circumstances, there wasn't alot of opportunity to address my sudden and unexplained illness, even if we did discuss it with alot of people who either 1) prayed for me 2) asked me too many questions or 3) stared at me too long.

I had to attend fellowship meetings, I had to be mama to the angry pre-teen who didn't want to be there, I had to be who I was, regardless of being so sick I was but waiting til the moment of death when I could finally rest. Bob was wonderful in that he tried to take care of me but we didn't know what the hell to take care of and this religious bunch was of the instruction that if you're sick, you suck and you better figure it out and not be a burden to the rest of us.

We finally, on day 3 or so, seek out a first aid set up they had that they actually called "third aid" in that in addition to the general band aids and aspirin, they'd offer prayer and condemnation. I'd had my fill of both already and noted no improvement but I played along for dangs and giggles.

By now, my fever had several times spiked 104, I was seeing things that weren't supposed to be there, said some stuff that I was later told scared others but was assumed to have the devil in me, so more prayers were prayed, louder whispers were whispered and I was surely at death's door or at the very least going to start puking pea soup at any moment.

My right leg was a swollen mess of nastiness and very hot, so it was finally determined that something must have chewed on my flesh but the bite mark made no sense to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The area was turning black and spreading. Black Widow Spider? Nah, I was still alive, mostly. A Rattle Snake? Nope, still alive, I was, contrary to my own prayers.

Finally, the 16 hour drive home was upon us and I was way and far past miserable and my husband was way and far past scared and all we could think of was getting our asses home so he could get his saw out and remove the offending limb. Well, ok, that was my wish, not his; he wouldn't agree.

The prayers must have worked, as I understood later that, in reality I should have been a goner by this point.

Finally ! in an emergency room back home seven days since this nightmare began, a doctor had me on my belly, poking around at the spot behind my knee, talking to my husband while my own prayers were something like "go ahead and euthanize me, sign the papers, I don't really care", but what I heard was "we are going to have to amputate her leg, it's gone on too long and the damage is too great, she'll lose her life"

Well, then, aint that a concept. I'd been bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider. I had invaded it's home in the camper, apparently and it was ....ed off enough to show me who was boss.

The man I'd married and the doctor to whom he'd dragged my very sick self talked among themselves while I faded in and out, but I did hear Bob say "no, I'll do whatever I have to, just teach me"

That instruction involved my husband scraping the ever growing nastiness on my leg 4 times a day of the dead tissue, cleaning the already fist sized hole and packing it with fascinating things and giving me some shot that I still don't remember since we had also been doing fertility something or other shots then too.

I refused. My husband, in his usual humor said "then I will agree to take your leg myself and you really don't want me to do that, so we're doing this, so get with me"

I got with him and for three months ! he had to debribe this nastiness happening on the back of my leg, before he went to work, coming home during lunch, and again at night before bed. It involved some incredible pain, alot of screaming (usually me, but not always) and still remained fear of losing the leg or the life.

Talk about remembering wedding vows..........whoa!

Little by little, the area shrunk, healed and the painful treatments melted to twice a day, then once, until finally it was just a matter of me being able to care for it myself and then leaving a quarter sized hole in the back of my knee as a battle scar.

If you have a strong gut, google pictures of a Brown Recluse Spider's damage, but remember I warned you.

www.shellonnorth.com

Edited July 22, 2009 by Shellon

[JeffSjo]

Your husband must have been a very good man Shellon.

The first...uh...third aid folks at ROA were completely incompetant however.

So glad you are here.

[rascal]

Wow Shell, how really frightening. I remember getting deathly ill at a roa. I didn`t have a husband to take care of me. :(

So glad that you had Bob there.

[Dot Matrix]

Gadzoocks, what a story. I love the tenderness of Bob.

[Shellon]

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words of Bob; he did take care of his wife and family. The scenerio so strikes of TWI's lack of care and concern for an ill person on their property.

Did that damn spider that bit me belong to the woods of TWI? Probably not. Were they cuplable, of course not, but I was a guest in their "home" and they took serious risks not being prepared for any possible emergency that might have arisen. Stupid action; what if it had been my child or a more immediate killing spider?

Uhhuh.

I learned some great and painful things beyond having to have my open wounded leg scrubbed and cut and cleaned out every day. We should ! ! have taken me to an emergency room as the wound became so obviously worse. Rather we sucked it up, and went through the motions of instructions, perhaps silently knowing something was bad wrong with my leg, minimally.

We didn't, I was lucky and it won't happen again, I can say that. Additionally, had it, in fact been my child, I'd have carried her on my own back to the emergency room, regardless of any leadership's chagrine or angst. It's that parent thing, eh?

My leg is fine, there is a scar to remind me to listen to my own voice even if it doesn't track with others who believe they believe better than I.

[krys]

I'm so sorry you had such a terrible time of it. You and I probably look at things differently. Once I'd realized it was a brown recluse, I'd have hi-tailed it back to where it was and given it a good whoop-foot just on general principle! But they are one of the worst bites there is! [if you don't count shark or crocodile]

[Shellon]

Sure, I'd have loved to stomp on some things, but I was already back in Arkansas by the time I understood what was really wrong.

I would have loved to stomp on some instructions of "believe God over what your instinct tells you and ignore all common sense".

[Shellon]

When I was potty training my first child, Samantha, we lived in Oklahoma and we had Tarantulu's in the yard; she played with them. We should have just gotten the kid a dog.

Anyway, into the bathroom one morning as usual, we went for her to do her thing, hopefully. She liked to be alone for this particular project which was fine by me so long as she made the expected deposits.

After a few minutes I heard a two year old scream and cuz I'm the mama and her daddy was the daddy, we started our own selves and tripped over each other to get to the owner of the scream.

Behind the toilet (ours, not the childs training one) there was a wall covered in little crawling pepper sized tarantula's, their proud new mama overseeing the entire process.

It took nearly 6 months to get our toddler to go back into the bathroom. Baths had to be done in a large basin in the kitchen, the potty chair went into her bedroom.

Enough spiders in our life, no? Well there was the time this same child, at 13, had a pet tarantula (albeit contained) for a science project; that was fun. She (her name was Rose) could only stay a short time as I was expecting our second child in months and I was not havin' it !

ha, spiders..........................

[Shellon]

That's a picture of her between her two grandfathers there. The kid was probably 4 before she'd not look behind any toilet before she did her thing.

I'm so glad she doesn't post or read here anymore........ :blink:

[frank123lol]

This has been a few years back,I was hooking and unloading trailers where I work.

the trucker was talking to me he had gotten bitten by a brown recluse in Toledo,

same symptoms as yours,so I would say there are brown recluses in ohio.

[Shellon]

Yeah, I think they can be that far North, just not very common. A friend lives in Illinois and he, too, got creamed by one of those buggers, lost three fingers by the time all was said and done.

The popup camper we used had been closed up for about a year and although we had cleaned it out quite well, I think we missed a spider home. Also it's possible that the nasty thing was in my clothing, too, since we lived in Arkansas and of course they'd be so much more common there.

Where ever it originated, it sure messed up my world for a long time.