Got bit by a Brown Recluse spider!

[OrangeCrush]

I swear I have the absolute worst luck when it comes to this kind of crap. I have now been stung by a sting ray, TWICE. I was stung by a jellyfish. I was bitten by a Mojave Desert Sidewinder while hiking in Joshua Tree National Park and I had to have a massive tick removed from my back after hiking in the Smokey Mountains and when I say massive, I mean massive. It was one of the largest ticks the ER department in Gatlinburg had ever seen and it had dug in so far they literally had to make a 3/4 inch incision to get it out.

My latest brush with nasty wildlife/critters happened 3 days ago. I was playing Xbox with my son and I felt a stinging sensation on my right bicept. I don't know how it crawled on me without my knowing, but as soon as I saw that a spider was on my arm, I immeditaly brushed it off with my Xbox controller and captured it with an empty glass we had on the table. I have seen Brown Reculse spiders multiple times before (just not in my house) and immediatey recognized that was the kind of spider it was. At that point, I immeditaly got my backpack from my closet as I have an Extractor kit that I always take hiking with me. I got it out and proceeded to get as much of the venom out as possible.

For those unaware, Brown Recluse venom usually isn't life threatening, but it can cause serious tissue damage if you don't get it out. It can cause necrosis of the skin and underlying cells. Since there is no anti-venom approved for use in the US for the Brown Reculse, your best bet is doing extacly what I did, use a suction device to get as much of it out as you can. Honestly, everyone should have an extractor kit. Thier dirt cheap and are worth every penny if you ever happen to have to use it.

Anyways, I think I got most of the venom out as I used the Extractor within minutes of the bite and my bite never developed the whitish blister that usually accompanies such bites after 12-24 hours. But that didn't stop my bicep from swelling up and brusing something fierce. It looked like someone took a baseball bat to the inside of my bicep.

For your viewing pleasure:



I guess some people are just cursed when it comes to this kind of crap.

[joefixit2]

crap in a hat, you have bad luck. Where do you live, so I can avoid it?

[adee]

Sorry OC but did you at least try and climb a wall yet?

[nbr3bagshotrow]

Bummer man. I have killed 2 black widows in our house.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by joefixit2

crap in a hat, you have bad luck. Where do you live, so I can avoid it?

Southeastern Michigan. In all honesty, its one of the most boring places one could possibly live. In regards to natural disasters the place is one of the safest places to live in the world. We don't get earthquakes, no serious flooding, no hurricanes, the thunderstorms we get are extremely weak, we almost never get hail and if we do its like 1/4 the size of a pea. The occassional tornado here and there is about the only thing that happens in these parts and the ones that actual do any damage or kill people are extremely rare.

As for venomous snakes and spiders, they are extremely rare. The only venomous snake that I know of in Michigan is the eastern massasauga rattlesnake and you have a better chance at seeing an alien or a flying saucer than you do one of those snakes. I have hiked all over Michigan for over 30 years and have never seen one to date. And even the Brown Reculse is not native to Michigan so thier extremely rare here. Maybe he hitched a ride in one of my recent Sideshow statue boxes???? As for the Sting Ray's and Jellyfish, those all occured in Clearwater Beach, Florida. Its a beautiful part of Florida, but they do have quite a few stingray incidents in that area on regular basis. They say shuffle your feet when you walk in the water and it should scare them away before you have a chance to step on them. The Jellyfish was just bad luck. I was scuba diving and came right up underneath him when I was surfacing. From below I just couldn't see him.

Originally Posted by nbr3bagshotrow

Bummer man. I have killed 2 black widows in our house.

I am worried about our box spring mattress. The last cat we had loved to tear at that stretchy farbric that they use to seal the bottom of box spring mattresses and wound up creating a big hole. He would hide up in the box spring anytime we would get a thundrestorm. And the cats we have now have only made the problem worse as they have torn at the little pices hanging down created from the first hole so now there is this gaping large hole in the bottom of our boxspring mattress. God knows what is living up in there. That would literally be the perfect place for a spider to live. It could literally build a web as big as he wanted that was never disturbed, short of my cats going up there.

We have decided to get rid of it and buy a new mattress set. We have been wanting to buy a new set for the last couple of years so this just gives us the perfect excuse to do so. I usually have a no kill policy in my house when it comes to spiders and insects as I just don't like having to kill anything if its not necessary. I usually just trap spiders in a glass and throw them outside. Unfortunately for that brown recluse, he was found guilty of assault with a dangerous venom. I was the presiding judge on the case and the sentence was death by a big a*s book!

[Medusoid]

Originally Posted by nbr3bagshotrow

Bummer man. I have killed 2 black widows in our house.

I wouldn't worry too much about them. Black widow bites are extremely overrated; you won't die from them. They'll hurt like a mother effer, but it won't kill you unless you're an infant or something.

[johnclone]

i smell a statue line, Deadly Spiders from the Underworld. Queen Black Widow, the sexy and deadly guardian of Hell, King Brown Recluse, the Lord of the Abyss, Prince Tarantula the scoundrel, as conniving and underhanded as he is handsome...

[OrangeCrush]

Since were talking about spiders and my bad luck when it comes to this kind of crap, I simply have to share my Amazon spider story. I have placed at least a couple hundred orders for books from Amazon over the last 15 years and if you include all of the other crap we buy from Amazon (video games, movies, food, clothing, and pretty much everythig else Amazon sells), we have likely placed over 1000 orders from Amazon since Amazon first went live. We literally recieve a couple orders a week from Amazon on average.

Anyways, roughy 4 years ago I placed an order for 2 art books. it was in early March so it was during my off season and I wasn't working at the time. I remember very clearly I was binge watching a season of Justified on Netflix. I went straight from bed that morning right to the couch in our living room and started watching Justified. I was wrapped up in one of these super large Calvin Klien fleece blankets we got from Cost Co. I absolutely love those blankets as thier literally like twice the size of normal fleece blankets. So I was wrapped up in one of those blankets with nothing but some athletic underwear and a t-shirt on. The package wound up being delivered and I grabbed the box and a pair of scissors and went back to the couch. I cut open the shipping tape, but instead of reaching into the box and pulling out the books, I decided to simply turn the box upside down so the books would just fall out onto my lap. There were no shipping peanuts or anything like that, just a couple of those small inflatable air bags that Amazon uses. Honestly, I don't know why I decided to do that as opposed to just reaching into the box and pulling the books out one by one as that is usually how I open up Amazon boxes, but it wound up being a very good thing that I decided to do that as Amazon delivered more than just my 2 art books that day.

I emptied the contents of the box onto my lap and along with the 2 art books, a big a*s spider dropped out as well, right onto my lap. I had the blanket wrapped around me so it didnt actually land on me directly but it was close enough. To say I absolutely freaked out would be a massive understatement. My blood pressure likely went from something like 120/80 to 160/100 in a matter of seconds. I really didn't even have time to think. I just instinctively snapped the blacket which sent both the books, and the spider off of me and striaght into the middle of our living room. And when I say this was a big spider, I am not exaggerating. The body of the spider was like the size of a mid sized green olive. It was one of the largest bodies I have ever seen on a spider outside of Costa Rica. I have seen some extremely large spiders down in Costa Rica!!

I didn't even try to identify what kind of spider it was. The inside door to our garage was right behind me so I immediately ran into the garage and got all my welding gear on, which basically includes a carbon fibre jacket, cowhide gloves and pants and a pair of Timberland work boots. I even put on my face shield just in case it decided to jump up at me or something. I had no idea what kind of spider it was so I had no cue what it was capable of doing. I had to look pretty funny going into my house in my entire welding outfit to kill a spider, but again that sucker was big and I had no idea what kind of spider it was so I wasn't taking any chances.

The rest of the story is pretty boring. I went inside, took one of the books that came in my order and crushed it. I think it might have gotten hit by one of the books when I flung everything into the middle of the living room as he really wasnt trying to move away or anything. He was just kinda sitting there dazed. One of the things I remember the most is the noise it made when I crushed it. It sounded like I was crushing an egg, which was pretty gross.

I then rinsed the guts of the spider off of the book in my sink and down the disposal. I then dropped one of those yellow disinfecting balls that smell like a lemon into the disposal as well and ran in for like 10-15 seconds with the water running. I then cleaned up as much of the rest of it as I could with some paper towel and then got out our little green clean machine and cleaned the carpet area where I crushed him.

I was so full of adrenaline that it literally took me like 30 minutes before I finally calmed down and to this day I still don't know what kind of spider it was. I have looked at lots of various pictures of different spiders that can reach that size, but I never really got a good look at it. As soon as I saw it drop on my lap I immeditaly flung it half way across the room and it was hard to see any details on the spider with my welding face shield on. And once I crushed him...well, it was hard to identify anythng at all at that point.

I did contact Amazon customer support and explained what had happened. Amazingly, I actually got a call from an Amazon manager the very next morning. He wanted to make sure everything was ok and went on to explain that the Amazon warehouses are extremely large and that even tho they take measures to keep the warehouses as clean and pest free as possible, they do get some pests from time to time, but assured me it was extremely rare that they wind up getting into an actual shipping box. I told him I had been shopping at Amazon for over 15 years and that this was the first issue we had ever had like this so it was all good. He said he appreciated my understanding in the matter and was issuing me a $150 dollar credit to my account, which he did. The book I used to crush the spider still has a small stain on the dust cover and every Amazon package I have recieved since that day I have looked inside the box before sticking my hands in to remove the products. Some things you just never forget and that event is definitely one of them.

[OrangeCrush]

Originally Posted by adee

Sorry OC but did you at least try and climb a wall yet?

I gotta be honest, I have read this multiple times now and for the life of me, I just can't figure out what it means. Whatever your saying here, it is just going right over my head. I have no idea what spider bites, or any of the other crap I have been stung or bit by has to do with "climbing a wall yet". Maybe its the venom attacking my brain, but you might as well be writing latin here.

[KaraFan]

Originally Posted by OrangeCrush

I gotta be honest, I have read this multiple times now and for the life of me, I just can't figure out what it means. Whatever your saying here, it is just going right over my head. I have no idea what spider bites, or any of the other crap I have been stung or bit by has to do with "climbing a wall yet". Maybe its the venom attacking my brain, but you might as well be writing latin here.

Spider-man