SPIDERS

Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary defines PHOBIA as an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.  What do you call a fear that is logical?  Whatever the word is, that is how my fear of spiders would be classified.

My first spider bite was when I was in my early teens and I was helping clean my younger brothers’ bedroom.  It wasn’t any worse that an ant bite, but I knew it was the spider because I felt it and saw the spider on my leg.  I was bit again in my late teens while working at a daycare.  I was sitting outside under a tree, watching the kids.  I thought a fire ant was bitting me, but is was a spider on my ankle.  Once again, the bite was bad, just red and itched a lot.  I was bit at the zoo when I was in my early 30s.  It was a field trip with Alex’s class and this time I didn’t see it, but I felt it on my shoulder.  This bite was worse and I ended up at the doctor because it looked nasty quick.  A few days of antibiotics and a cortisone cream and it was better in a week.  I know you must be thinking, “that’s not so bad,” but then came the big one.

In June of 2006, I had just moved into an older house that I was remodeling.  A lot of bugs had been stirred up in that house by the remodel.  We found black widows and I was not happy about that, but that’s not what got me.  I was sick with my bi-annual case of bronchitis.  I went to the linen closet to get another pillow in the hopes that sleeping more up-right would make it easier to breath.  The next morning I woke up to a bump on my neck.  It looked like a pimple and I thought that was an odd place, but didn’t think to much about it.  The next day, this bump was big and it hurt a lot.  Then on the third morning, I woke up to a large black dot in the middle of the bump which was even bigger.  Of course this was on a Sunday, so I had to wait another day to go to the doctor.  Fourth morning it looks awful and I’m in a lot of pain, so I head to the doctor.  He looks at it, leaves the room, come back with a book and another doctor.  They flip pages, point, poke my awful bump and it hurts.  They then deliver the bad news - BROWN RECLUSE.  Now I’ve heard about these spiders.  Not good!  I remember my dad was bit once and it was not good.  The bite hurt and made me sick.  It opened up to a little larger than a quarter.  Since it was on my neck, in the bend of it, it made it hard to cover.  I didn’t go many places.  It took weeks of strong antibiotics, which made me sick, and pain killers, which made me sick.  The doctor called a surgeon to debris it, but the surgeon’s office never called back despite my numerous calls to the begging for some help.  I was desperate and did “surgery” on myself and after about 8 weeks it was healed.

Terminix was called out to the house and at first they didn’t believe we had brown recluse spiders since we had just moved in and our house was not cluttered.  They set rat glue traps all over the house and said they’d be back in a week to “evaluate” the problem.  SHOCK was the only thing the technician could muster when he began to count all the brown recluse spiders caught in the trap.  He counted over 50 brown recluse spiders in the traps and said that was probably about 10% of the spiders we had in the house.  He showed me how to tell which ones were brown recluse.  I was given a large box of glue traps and now I was in charge of changing them out every other day, saving the other and documenting the number and day those were collected.  I hated this.  The most we collected in a week was 75, the most in a 2 day period was 20.  They even had the Terminix entomologist flown in from wherever she lives.  She was shocked and then talked about how hard spiders are to kill with chemicals.  GREAT!!  We had weekly “dusting” of the house, inside and out the entire time I lived there.  The day I left the house, 2 1/2 years later, I still had a brown recluse problem.

I have noticed an increase of spiders in my house the past few weeks.  I’m not a little creeped-out.... I’m a lot creeped-out.  I’m hoping that the increase in spiders is due to heat and lack of water outside and will resolve soon.

My legitimate fear kicked into over drive this morning when I was in Tori’s room cleaning up her toys and found a brown recluse, very much alive and crawling away.  I can honestly tell you that the panic attack was real and I’m not sure when I can go in her room and finish the job.