Not Quite Eensy Weensy

GI had not been feeling well last week and we wanted him to see a doctor.  MacGyver had offered to bring him to the GP several times but GI kept on declining.  GI thought that taking some paracetamol and getting some sleep would do the trick.   Finally on Saturday morning, he acceded. He woke up and was still not feeling better that he asked to be brought to the doctor.  

I offered him some breakfast after he dressed up but he just wanted the doctor visit over and done with, so he and MacGyver left soon after.

Not twenty minutes had passed when we got a call from MacGyver with news that GI had got bitten by a spider.  Apparently, on the way to the health centre, while still in the car, GI had felt something on his foot.  He tried to scratch at it but the feeling would not go away. When he took off his shoe, a spider fell out.  MacGyver picked it up while they were at a stop light and he saw the ominous red stripe on the back of the spider.  It was a redback spider.

GI's foot was immediately seen when they arrived at the health centre.  The one who checked GI confirmed that it was a redback spider but informed them that the health centre did not have the facilities to check if the spider was poisonous or not.  They were advised to go to a nearby hospital emergency room.  

That was the reason MacGyver called, he wanted me to get ready to join them to the ER.  He gave the minimum details of what had happened --  GI, redback spider, and ER.  

While I was waiting, I looked up redback spider in the internet and this is what you'll see if you google 'redback spider.'  It says it is "a species of venomous spider indigenous to Australia."

Note how the picture does not have any scaling so I had imagined a huge black spider.  Guilt flowed over me as I recalled leaving alone a long-legged spider by the shoe racks the other week.  "Spiders are your friends" and "all creatures great and small" had crossed my mind so I had made no attempt to kill that spider. In my mind, it would be so sad if that was the spider that bit GI, because I could have prevented it.

Later, when I saw the actual spider (about the size of a housefly), I knew it was not the long-legged spider I had allowed to live another day but that didn't change the fact that GI had been bitten.

Redback spider poison symptoms include sweating around the bitten area, numbing, etc. At the health centre, they had drawn a border around the swollen area on his foot. Even at the ER, GI said he felt generally fine with the exception of his flu-like symptoms (but that existed before the spider came along). There were no indications that the swelling had gotten worse and GI was not experiencing any numbing.    The doctor determined an anti-venom was not needed though they did give him an anti-tetanus shot just in case.  

So that was our latest experience with the Australian wildlife though I am sure GI would have been happy to have skipped this particular one.