Spider Bite!

See the fang marks? Very painful.

I was supposed to go to a dentist appointment this morning, but overnight I began to feel very sick.  I felt feverish and nauseous by 6 a.m.  Plus, my hand was swollen and hurting pretty bad.  What was happing??  At first, I didn’t know.  

But thinking back, on Sunday evening I was cleaning up the backyard and moving some old wood boards to a burn-pile when I felt a small sting.  It wasn’t super painful.  More like getting pricked by a thorn or something.  I never saw a spider…. but I’m guessing that a spider is exactly what that was.  A few hours later I start to feel sick.  My hand starts to swell.  I could see two little fang-bites on my thumb.  By the next morning, … ugh… I felt so sick.  

I called the dentist and cancelled the appointment.  That something I never do.  But I apologized and explained I feel sick as if I have the flu or something.  She chided me for calling at the last minute (about 10 minutes before my appointment).  But, whatever.  It felt like I had Covid19.  Yes, I took an at-home Covid test right away.  It was negative. 

After thinking about it and doing a little digging on the internet, I concluded that I had, indeed, been bitten by a spider.  I considered going to the hospital, but first I consulted the mighty Google and began reading about spider bites.  I read that some spider bites are not poisonous, but will still make you feel sick.  If not poisonous, then the feeling of nausea and body-aches will go away after about 6 hours.  So, sure enough, the nausea and body-aches went away by the end of the day.  The pain in my hand, though, lasted a few more days.  Eventually, it all completely healed. 

Crazy situation!  I’ve never been bitten by a spider before.  That was a whole new experience.