Not a Good Week
I have an allergy to black widow bites, apparently.
That's what the return visit to the doctor today educated me about. Initially there was no way to identify what kind of spider (or other crawly thing) bit me, without having caught the perpetrator in the act, but now that the symptoms had become full blown, an educated guess was possible. Black widows are rare in BC (especially in the city, in winter, downtown, etc, etc, etc), but the doctor had seen several over the course of his practice, and he said my arm looked like every case he'd ever seen. (Oddly, he was surprised that I knew what a black widow spider looked like, and even more surprised when I told him they'd taught us in elementary school: "Where are you from, anyway?" I guess they're not common enough here to warrant warning the kids about them.)
The initial bite would have been bad enough, but that's where the allergy aspect of it comes in — my body adversely reacted not only to the effects of the poison in my system, but also to the foreign substance itself, creating the hard knot that initially appeared, and the subsequent swelling and secondary infection.
Regardless, after doing some retroactive reading about black widow bite symptoms, so many things make sense about this spider bite:
First off, the pain. Black widow venom contains a compound which is a pain amplifier (many scorpion stings are notorious for this, too). Yeah. Wow. All I have to say about that.
Secondly, the random bouts of nausea and abdominal cramps, which I'd assumed were simply side-effects of too much work and too little sleep. I have to admit, though, that they seemed a bit more random than my standard gastro-intestinal challenges. Few things are as frustrating as sprinting to the restroom at breakneck pace, only to find yourself utterly poopless.
Lastly, there's the fever and chills and tremors, even before the infection set in yesterday. I wasn't sure what that meant, but mostly attributed it to a dire need for sleep.
Anyway, temporary celebrity aside (my boss even set aside time in our weekly leadership meeting so that everyone could take a look at my "Popeye arm," as he called it), this is not an experience I care to repeat at all.
The doctor said that my allergy may have actually prevented some of the more severe symptoms of the venom (like, um . . . death, for example, even though that's an uncommon outcome), as my body immediately reacted to the venom and blocked the tissue off. There's no telling what a second exposure would be like though. So if I'm ever internationally famous, and you need a clever way to assassinate me which no one will ever track back to you, well there you go.
At any rate, any attempts to climb buildings still result in a humiliating slide down into the flowerbed. You'd think as long as I've been through all this, it could have at least been a special radioactive spider, right?
* * *
Of course today, like any other day, included a bit of local surrealism to put the finishing flourish on it. After my doctor visit I was still reeling a bit from the news (black widows? I thought they killed people) and stepped into a coffee shop on Commercial Drive to sit for a few minutes and recollect myself. While I was there, through the door suddenly glided a tall man wearing old-style roller skates and a black leather cowboy hat with sides folded straight up, to generate an effect not unlike a British admiral's hat, with a sail of giant white feather-boa-style feathers protruding from the hat. Apparently he is a friend of the management (or heck, this was the Drive — he could be the management for all I knew) because he rolled right back into the kitchen without a word to anyone.
That's what the return visit to the doctor today educated me about. Initially there was no way to identify what kind of spider (or other crawly thing) bit me, without having caught the perpetrator in the act, but now that the symptoms had become full blown, an educated guess was possible. Black widows are rare in BC (especially in the city, in winter, downtown, etc, etc, etc), but the doctor had seen several over the course of his practice, and he said my arm looked like every case he'd ever seen. (Oddly, he was surprised that I knew what a black widow spider looked like, and even more surprised when I told him they'd taught us in elementary school: "Where are you from, anyway?" I guess they're not common enough here to warrant warning the kids about them.)
The initial bite would have been bad enough, but that's where the allergy aspect of it comes in — my body adversely reacted not only to the effects of the poison in my system, but also to the foreign substance itself, creating the hard knot that initially appeared, and the subsequent swelling and secondary infection.
Regardless, after doing some retroactive reading about black widow bite symptoms, so many things make sense about this spider bite:
First off, the pain. Black widow venom contains a compound which is a pain amplifier (many scorpion stings are notorious for this, too). Yeah. Wow. All I have to say about that.
Secondly, the random bouts of nausea and abdominal cramps, which I'd assumed were simply side-effects of too much work and too little sleep. I have to admit, though, that they seemed a bit more random than my standard gastro-intestinal challenges. Few things are as frustrating as sprinting to the restroom at breakneck pace, only to find yourself utterly poopless.
Lastly, there's the fever and chills and tremors, even before the infection set in yesterday. I wasn't sure what that meant, but mostly attributed it to a dire need for sleep.
Anyway, temporary celebrity aside (my boss even set aside time in our weekly leadership meeting so that everyone could take a look at my "Popeye arm," as he called it), this is not an experience I care to repeat at all.
The doctor said that my allergy may have actually prevented some of the more severe symptoms of the venom (like, um . . . death, for example, even though that's an uncommon outcome), as my body immediately reacted to the venom and blocked the tissue off. There's no telling what a second exposure would be like though. So if I'm ever internationally famous, and you need a clever way to assassinate me which no one will ever track back to you, well there you go.
At any rate, any attempts to climb buildings still result in a humiliating slide down into the flowerbed. You'd think as long as I've been through all this, it could have at least been a special radioactive spider, right?
* * *
Of course today, like any other day, included a bit of local surrealism to put the finishing flourish on it. After my doctor visit I was still reeling a bit from the news (black widows? I thought they killed people) and stepped into a coffee shop on Commercial Drive to sit for a few minutes and recollect myself. While I was there, through the door suddenly glided a tall man wearing old-style roller skates and a black leather cowboy hat with sides folded straight up, to generate an effect not unlike a British admiral's hat, with a sail of giant white feather-boa-style feathers protruding from the hat. Apparently he is a friend of the management (or heck, this was the Drive — he could be the management for all I knew) because he rolled right back into the kitchen without a word to anyone.