I realized it wasn’t a fly, tensed up and brushed at it again, quickly, and it fell onto my daughter’s quilt. As I brushed at it the second time, I felt how large it was, and rushed to turn on the light. When I saw the huge spider crawling across my daughter’s blanket, I started screaming for my fiance. He came in, grabbed the blanket, and dragged it down the hall, telling me as he went to get a jar. We got it in a jar and he asked if I’d been bit and what happened. I said “No I don’t think so” and then glanced at my left shoulder where I had first felt it crawling on me. I had what I thought looked like a rather ordinary looking spider bite. He knew what it was and packed the whole family in the car to go to the ER with our spider in the jar. Really strange to me still that I never felt it bite me.

As another poster pointed out, taking the speciman with you, if possible, is the best thing you can do, though I have to say while I was terrified and waiting for the doctor to come tell me I wasn’t going to die, every nurse in the ER barged in to my room to look at it, and me, in awe, which was a little unnerving and annoying; I just wanted to know if I was going to be okay..

At first I felt nothing but pins and needles in my shoulder and in my left arm. It started in the joints and then the whole arm started to feel dull and heavy and numb, like I’d slept on it. Then the muscle spasms, which actually weren’t bad at first, but became excruciating in the following hours and days. Dizziness, headache, body ache, muscle spasms and constant, unremitting nausea. The doc gave me Lorazapam for nausea and stomach cramps and oxycodone for pain, I gave up on the Lorazapam after the first dose- a med for nausea which has a side effect of….nausea? I’ve taken the pain killers cautiously, but when I don’t I feel like I have the worst case of anemia and/or flu plus horrible, horrible muscle spasms. Sometimes I get feverish, and I am hungry, but every time I eat I regret it. The cramping in the back of my legs and thighs is the worst.

Yesterday, Thursday, I finally felt pretty normal. Today I feel like a total rag doll and finally (after midnight) have taken some pain medication. I want it to go away, and have been trying to figure out how long it’s going to last. It seems like every person has a different reaction, so I don’t really know what to expect. God forbid this lasts for months as I’ve read here and there. I didn’t even get a big dose of poison, if the site of the bite is any indication.

The spider that bit me (I sitll have the dead spider in the jar) is the classic inky black spider with the red hourglass on it’s belly- but I’ve read that this species is a Southern black widow, and I live in Eastern Washington. I’m curious about that.
The one thing that I am endlessly grateful for, is that I got bitten and not my daughter. If it had appeared (out of nowhere, as it seemed to!) just a few minutes later, I would have not been in the room, and she could have brushed at it in her half-sleep state and been bitten, and I would have never known. It could have been fatal for her. The idea scares the hell out of me. Tonight is the first night I’ve let her sleep in there since it happened. I’ve swept out the ceiling, cleaned the room from top to bottom, and I’m still terrified that there’s another one in there.

The whole thing has been very traumatic. One of the worst effects is that I am now very afraid of bugs and spiders, and I never ever have been in my life. I was always the tomboy growing up that had no problem handling them- my 10 year old son is terrified of spiders and I always go into his room when he starts screaming to laugh and remove them. No more. I’m totally freaked out. Tonight I bought a bunch of spinach (since I felt so weak, I thought maybe I should have some greens- didn’t help- it’s the neurotoxin). I took the spinach home and cleaned it, and cleaned it and cleaned it like I have OCD or something. For some reason I was terrified it had some kind of bug in it and that I was going to bite into it. I made a huge salad out of it but couldn’t eat it all because every time I took a bite I cringed and braced myself for a bug. One night (I think Tuesday) I got the creepy-crawlies really bad- but I thought it might be a side effect of the pain killers and not just me.

All in all, not a good experience, and I wish I knew when the neurotoxin will work it’s way out of my system so I can go about my business like a normal person!!!

I sprayed it and everything else with strong bug spray, then soaked it with the hose. Then I remembered the kids’ hard plastic wagon that had been sitting under the cypress trees gathering leaves for a while. I took my bug spray and water hose and kicked it over. At least a dozen widows and juveniles (light brown) ran out. There were several egg sacks. Another day, one crawled out of our Rubbermaid hose rack on the other side of the house. So, heads up to all the parents: widows love those hard plastic toys, racks and boxes for their nests so be sure to check them thoroughly and rinse them out before your kids use them if they are left outside. I have also seen the spiders/webs under picnic tables and benches in the park so be careful sitting on them.