spider2(Added September 3, 2006) I just figured I’d post the other spider picture. I found it on my other computer and thought it looked pretty cool.

smallbite

(This is the old post, uploaded the first part of July)

This is just the first of what will probably be a few posts about my recent trip to Idaho. Although not in chronological order, this is nevertheless one of the most interesting things.

I think I got bit by a hobo spider my last night in Idaho. We were sleeping in my old room and my mom and dad’s house , which I slept in for years with no spider bites by the way.

Now I’ll admit that I didn’t actually catch the spider in the act. That is something of a problem with most reported hobo spider bites, in fact. So they are kind of blamed for any and all weird unexplained skin lesions or conditions.

More… However, I think in my case the blaming is warranted. I don’t know what else it could be. The only other think I thought it might have been is some weird thing that I picked up water skiing in the reservoir…but it didn’t show up until several days after water skiing. So when added to the fact that at least one of the spots looks just like you would expect a spider bite to look I’m thinking that what it is.

So it started itching on the way home on the airplane Monday night, and by halfway through work I had looked in the mirror and noticed that it looked like a bite.

I put aloe vera on the spot over the next little while but it hurt bad enough to wake me up Thursday morning. I decided to go to the doctor after work, and actually left a little early to do so. (I’ll skip the story about why it took longer than I had planned to get to the doctor for now).

Having no hobo spiders out here, they weren’t quite sure what to do and how serious it could be. After a few phone calls, some blood work and lots of curious looks they sent me home with some antibiotics and of course a tetanus shot.

I seem to be on the mend now, the bites are getting smaller and now hurting as much, so I think it will turn out OK in the end. Especially since I got a tetanus shot.

That is really my only complaint. Why do doctors want to give you tetanus shots for everything? I wasn’t bitten by a rusty combine–it was spider. If you stub your toe they want to give you a shot. They must get a kickback on all tetanus shot. Even when you go overseas to a place like London, which has this allegedly great socialized medicine they make you get a tetanus shot. Which is really unnecessary unless you are going to tour their rusty combine museums.