One morning, while in the shower, I ran the soap over my leg and noticed a burning sensation. I looked and saw a pinkish place with a small scraped or punctured spot in the middle of it. Since it particularly burned when the soap touched it, I thought that it might be an insect bite. However, I had to be at work at 10:00 a.m., so I finished getting ready and forgot all about it.
At about 11:00 a.m., I suddenly had a strange, faint or dizzy spell and a feeling of nausea. This sensation began to come over me in waves. I went to the restroom hoping the feeling would go away, but it only got worse. I excused myself as sick and went home.
At home, I got under the cover. I felt really, really cold and nauseous (though I never vomited). My left temple was splitting. This continued all day, and I stayed fast under the cover. I didn't want anything to eat. The headache never stopped. I continued to freeze and ache and feel nauseous until seven at night. At that time, the tide turned. I felt well almost immediately, jumped out of bed, and was ready for a meal.
That night, I noticed that the rash on my leg had become larger and pinker. By the next day, the size had doubled. I was now concerned and was watching the bite, but I still didn't put two and two together and realize that the bite had caused the illness. However, by the next morning (two days after the bite), the pink rash had quadrupled in size. The center had turned black, with purple extending outward in rings. I knew then that this was no ordinary mosquito bite. I went immediately to the doctor. "You've been bitten by something that is breaking down the molecular structure of your tissue," he said brightly.
"Oh my God! I've been bitten by an alien," I thought. But it was merely the shy brown recluse that had tried to make a meal of me. A dosepak of Prednisone and I was back to normal. Although I did experience some unusual joint pain during subsequent years, I have no idea if that was due to the spider bite or a fall that I took during the same period. I would speculate that it was the latter. Current information on spiders indicates that the brown recluse is often blamed for bites made by another reclusive fellow, the hobo spider.
The Brown Recluse
