***WARNING if you hate feet, do not “continue reading” because the images might make you vomit – equally if you have a foot fetish, do not “continue reading” because the pictures might make you vomit. If you’re indifferent to feet, don’t “continue reading” because the images might make you vomit anyway. WARNING***
A day tending to my COMPLETELY horrendous overgrown veggie patch resulted in a slight issue with my foot. So there I was stomping around my jungle of a veggie patch when OUCH!!! What was THAT!?!! A few seconds later, OW!!! It got me again!! I jumped out of the plot and looked at my ankle, there was nothing there other than two marks on either side of my ankle and a bit of a stinging sensation, so I assumed I had been stung by something, but the pain quickly subsided, so I carried on pruning.
An hour later, my foot had started going this weird red/pink blotchy colour with patches of swelling. One of the areas where the two punctures were had also scabbed over.
By the evening, it had got bigger, so I took a couple of antihistamines and sat on the sofa for the night with a glass of wine, an elevated monster foot and cold compresses to bring the swelling down. It’ll be fine by the morning, I thought to myself. Plus, I have so much work to do, I don’t have time to seek medical attention!
After a really restless night, by morning it had gotten worse, a lot worse. My entire foot and lower part of my leg was red hot. On the way to the hospital, I began shivering, feeling dizzy, really nauseous and promptly turned into a sweaty mess.
As soon as we saw the nurse, she took me straight through to the doctor who confirmed it was likely to be a spider bite, but as I didn’t see the multi-legged beast, they couldn’t say what one. However because I allowed my pumpkins and corn to go crazy, the little bastard had plenty of food and water… and was obviously sitting there waiting for me 🙁
Unfortunately, I had picked up an infection from an allergic reaction to the bite so necessary treatment of cream to apply to the affected area, plus a 7-day course of antibiotics and a really uncomfortable three days to deal with.
So the moral of the story is 1. look after your veggie patch and 2. if you’re concerned just go and see a medical professional. I should have gone to see someone that night rather than leaving it 24 hours because I thought I would be “wasting their time”. Instead, I ended up in a lot of pain and on medication.
Turns out I can tick that off my list of things to do. Get bitten by a spider. Tick!