Along Came a Spider...

My latest adventure started late Wednesday afternoon. I was feeling slightly groggy, light headed, and sort of nauseated. So I lay on the couch and dozed off. An opening monologue from Ellen later, I awoke to Dateline and the realization that I took a two hour nap. This should have been my first clue because I can never sleep during the day -- my analytical brain and constant ADD never let me rest for ten minutes much less two hours.

The next morning, I woke up and my left shoulder was on fire, sort of like a sun burn. More than that, it felt like it had been dislocated. I had a searing pain running up and down my arm like I had lifted at the gym but chose weights that were far too heavy for me.

Day 3, a small blister came up and a surrounding rash. I had my mother take a look at the thing and she informed me it was a spider bite. So in disbelief, I decided to do what internet technology enables most paranoid people to do -- I self-diagnosed via Google images.
No sooner did I hit "Search" than a whole slew of variations of this shot showed up. Warning, not for the faint of heart or those who have just eaten:



Yeah... that's exactly why I decided to never self-diagnose myself before bedtime again. My spider, fortunately, was not a Brown recluse but was likely only of the garden variety. It must have bitten me when I went out for a bike ride that Wednesday.

It's Day 6 now and my entire left arm still hurts. The blistered area, even though regularly doused with calamine lotion, itches horribly. If that's not bad enough, three other red patches have developed, too. My entire left arm is arthritic, and my shoulder socket is so terribly tight that I can't even sleep on my left side.

As I type this, I am jacked up on Benadryl, so hopefully that will excuse my lack of grammar skills. But yeah, it's probably about time to put away my Web MD and head to the doctor.