Spiderman

As per my doctor's orders, I slept in my recliner 5 days, ending last Tuesday. It was about then that I noticed a couple of pimply-looking red spots on the top of my forehead. Didn't think much of it, even when a red splotch began to encircle the two spots. I thought it was just one of those strange things that appears then goes away a few days later.

I think you know where this is going. By Thanksgiving Day, the area was quarter-size and getting very angry-looking. By then I was convinced this had to be related to a spider bite of some kind. About two weeks ago, I killed a large brown spider a few feet from the recliner that looked like pictures I'd seen of brown recluse spiders.

The red area has slowly grown and now has tiny blisters appearing. This is getting a bit alarming! I've got an appointment with a family practice doctor this afternoon at 4:20. This guy is a real outdoorsman and I'm hopeful he's got good experience with this sort of thing. I would think that the source was a brown recluse were it not for the fact that I've had no symptoms other than the red area smarting and stinging. This is getting curiouser and curiouser. I'll report in on what the doc says...unless he puts me in the hospital...I hope that's a joke.

LATER: Back from the doctor and the news is good, kinda. I've got shingles. The symptoms really are similar to the recluse spider bite...but the fact that I had two lesions pretty much ruled out the spider since they nearly always bite once and then move on to another meal. He said people who've just had surgery are susceptible because their immune system is down a bit. So I'm on a strong antibiotic and steroids. The sad thing is that I'm contagious. If I spread the virus to a child, then the poor kid will get chicken pox...and I've been holding Macie (9 months) all day.

So I guess this is what I get for using the internet as my doctor.