Well things just keep getting more interesting around here. On Monday, a small bite appeared on my left arm right next to my elbow. It wasn’t a typical bite – not a mosquito or bee sting or anything else I’d ever had before. It stung and made my whole arm hurt, and it just kept getting more and more painful. The bite wasn’t that big – simply the size of the tip of my pinky, but it was red and inflamed. There was an open sore in the middle, a ring of white around it, and a bigger ring of red around that. By Tuesday night, any amount of pressure on my arm hurt, even the way my shirt pressed against it. Wednesday I tried to see the doctor, convinced now that I’d been bitten by a spider (having looked up pictures and info on the Internet), but the doctor wasn’t in. The nurse, who doesn’t speak English, put a topical antibiotic on it and covered it. Through an interpreter, she told me that the bite was infected and I needed to come back on Thursday to see the doctor and probably get an antibiotic. With my arm extremely inflamed and painfully sensitive to even the slightest touch, I returned to the doctor on Thursday. I explained to her what I thought it was, although I don’t really think she listened. She told me that she needed to cut it open and drain it. I looked at her like I thought she was crazy…I was in a school nurse’s office for God’s sake…but she said it was the best thing to do, and I thought who was I to disagree with a doctor. So she cleans it up and then just cuts into it. Nothing to numb it or anything. The bite hurt like hell if a kleenex touched it, and she was cutting it open. I had to bite my hand to keep from screaming out loud. Surprise, surprise, but the cutting it open (followed by her squeezing it), did nothing at all except make my arm bleed. No pus or venom or whatever came out. Basically, she just cut my arm open without any form of anisthetic. After cleaning that mess up and bandaging it, she tells me that it wasn’t as superficial as she thought. No shit. She prescribed a topical and an oral antibiotic, which I went and got at the pharmacy and began to take. Unfortunately she prescribed no pain medicine, and now I had not only a painful spider bite, but also a cut open arm. I couldn’t walk, move, anything, without my whole arm burning like someone was pouring acid on it. Thursday night I was crying because it hurt so bad. After borrowing pain medicine from my roommate, I managed to fall asleep. My arm still hurt on Friday, but it seemed that it was a little better and there was a slim possibility that it might not fall off. I went back to the doctor for her to look at it and re-bandage it. Isn’t there something in doctor training that tells doctors not to make nasty faces when they are doing things to their patients? It really didn’t make me feel better to see her looking grossed out at my bite and what she had done to my arm. Anyhow, I could provide a lot more details, but the good news is that it seems to be getting better. What looked like green nastiness last night has now turned into a scab of sorts. This morning Kate and I took a picture of it. The picture came out quite good. It looks really nasty though. I’m trying to find a way to post it, so you can all check it out. I know you’re excited. Just remember this picture is of it looking good. But anyhow, I’m hoping it clears up soon, and I can go back to using my arm. I’ve discovered that quite a few things are difficult to do with just one arm…floss your teeth, put in contacts, put on deoderant, wash your hair, etc. So what I’m trying to say is be thankful you have two arms. God knew what he was doing when he gave you two. And also, stay away from spiders…and Greek doctors.
PS. Thank you Matthew for the great lyrics to the SpiderBite song. There really is a song for every occasion.
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