Okay, you guys are bringing up bad memories.Fifteen years ago I was building a deck
in my back yard in Hayward, Ca, while Judy was
in England
for a semester of college.I got
bitten by a Black Widow that had crawled into my shoe while I was in having
lunch.20 minutes later I got so
sick I could not stand up.I didn’t
know it was the spider at the time; I was sure it was food poisoning from the
frozen pizza I had just eaten. I
was lying on the ground, dizzy, throwing up, not able to stand, everything
hurt.After 10 minutes I was just
about to crawl inside and call 911, when I thought it was getting better.I lay there for an hour while the
sickness went away.I went inside and sat on the couch for
the next 12 hours.
It wasn’t until the next day that I went outside and
picked up my shoe- out came the dead black widow.I took off my sock and saw the bite- a
big, red, swollen spot on the top of my foot.Spider in left shoe, bite on left foot.The mind starts working, and that’s
when I got scared, and started to freak out!I called the poison control center and
shouted: “I’ve been bitten by a black widow! I’VE BEEN BITTEN BY A BLACK
WIDOW!WHAT SHOULD I DO!
The guy was so cool.He asked, “When?” “YESTERDAY!”“Did you get sick?”“YES!”“Are you better now?”“WELL, Yes,”I
replied.“Good,” he
said.“You’re all done.”
It turns out the nasty spider is rarely fatal, except to
young children and older people, or people with specific allergies.I never gave spiders much thought
before then, and still always escort spiders out of the house in a baseball
cap, but I KILL THE BLACK WIDOWS!
