This spider's bite, sucks!

I never wanted this to happen to me, and I thought for sure the odds were definitely in my favor considering millions never even see this elusive spider their whole lives and yet live within feet of them every day of their lives...

I arose from my slumber this past Thursday morning and nothing seemed out of the ordinary; other than some massive [running] blisters on my ankles that were extremely sore. I went about my business as usual. I actually went through the whole day on Thursday without noticing anything out of the ordinary. Then Friday afternoon I noticed some tightness in my Achilles tendon on my right leg around my ankle. I really didn't think much of it because I have huge blisters on my heel there, so I wrote it off. Then Friday night came and I realized that something wasn't quite right. I would stand or walk and a sharp jabbing pain and pulling sensation would grab my heel and Achilles tendon. When I reached down and gave it a squeeze and a rub, and that's when I knew things were bad; very, very bad! No bueno.

There was a huge lump there. I really couldn't get a great look at it, so I grabbed a small mirror and contorted myself into an awkward yoga position and examined. A lump about the size of a silver dollar coin, with a small white pus-filled center, and bright red scaley skin around the white spot. My heart stopped.

Immediately I Google'd: brown recluse bite, and this is what I discovered ... and this is also what MY ankle looks like:

Day 1 Brown Recluse spider bite

I will do you the favorite of not posting the photos from this guy's bite through Day 9 when his hand is black and rotten.

[The incident must have taken place between Thursday night into Friday morning; perhaps in my bed; I'm not sure. I never found the culprit (that's scary!).]

I had the doc here at work check me out and he confirmed that I indeed have a brown recluse bite, but he said it didn't look like it would get much worse. I've never heard of a brown recluse bite NOT getting worse! And I really hope it doesn't get worse as World Championships is just around the corner; and being that this bite is just a couple millimeters from my Achilles tendon, the tendon might become rotten as the skin and muscle tissue also dies.

Anyhow, right now the pain is pretty bad. The bite area is starting to turn a deeper red and lighter purple.

This all started or took place yesterday, which was the worst day of my fall semester at UNL. I've been diligently studying, reviewing, and applying concepts to memory since school started for my General Genetics (BIOS 206) course; only to fail the first exam. [I don't know if I truly failed it yet, but I don't see how I could've passed other than by God's grace!] The exam was 21 pages long, each page had 2 questions; most questions had multiple parts; each question was a paragraph or two in length, along with multiple paragraph-length sub-questions; there were no multiple choice questions, and only ONE True/False question; every question took a half page of writing or working out equations to show the answers; and we had 50-mins to complete the exam. It took me nearly 2.5 hrs and I still hadn't answered all the questions completely (or correctly).

Yesterday was a day from hell. Thankfully, I have the most awesome best-friend in the Universe who spent the whole day and evening with me being completely random, which made up for the suckiness of Genetics. Thank you, Jason. And thank you, Jesus!