three straight weeks of travel, paintball and
activity.
THE VALLEY
The next day I woke up early for my clinic,
went to move off the couch and found that
I couldn’t move my leg. It felt like the worst
cramp ever and I was pale, feverish, and
sweaty. I tried to fight through it but they
insisted I looked terrible and it would be
understood if I canceled the clinic. I slept
the entire day away and straight through the
night thinking I just needed water and rest.
The next day… I woke up to an immobile leg
once again. To my horror, when I removed
the covers I discovered my leg was swollen
up about three times the size, bright red, and
one of the wounds on my calf had become
a one inch recessed open hole surrounded
by red rings of infection spider’ing outwards.
Beyond not being able to move it felt like
my leg was being covered and eaten by fire
ants from my foot up to my right butt cheek.
The pain was unreal and the sight of this was
terrifying.
J-Bird took me to several hospitals in slow
moving traffic before I was admitted into
Surrey Sussex General Hospital emergency
room five hours later. The admittance nurses
saw my leg and immediately put me past
the 30 patients in the waiting room and
right into a bed in a room of nine other very
old sick people. This was pretty convenient
considering the pain but that would be the
last of things going easy and the beginning
of the battle.
The signs of the skin tissue being eaten away,
the deep hole, and the infected leg were tell
tale signs of a venomous spider bite. The
ironic thing is I have been to Asia, had just
gone to Mexico and live in Florida where
there are tons of spiders and snakes.