picture this yourself..not for squeamish

No picture need accompany this story. Really. One of my recent adventures included being bitten by something. Maybe a brown recluse, or maybe another spider. The doctor said it's just a guess when you don't have the critter for evidence. Whatever it was, it made me really sick. I woke up in Savannah feeling fine, but then started feeling yucky. It was the day we drove home so I wasn't much good for driving. By the time we got to Atlanta I felt AWFUL. By the time we got home, I had a fever. All this time I thought it was just a virus. I hadn't been home 5 minutes when I sat down and noticed that my knee hurt. I looked and saw a bite. Clearly a gross looking bite. By the next morning it looked like someone had put out a cigar on my knee. It's been almost two weeks and it STILL looks like someone put out a cigar on my knee. I had 10 days of antibiotics and daily doses of antibiotic ointment. My skin has flaked off the area (about the size of my thumbprint) and it still has blisters and a telling red, white and blue pattern (characteristic of spider bites). My good friend the nurse said it was necrotic (meaning 'dead'...yuck yuck yucky) but that it was normal for bites. I've read up on spider bites and learned that they inject some sort of protein that dissolves other bugs and apparently people and that they are full of nasty bacteria.

Overall, tho, I feel lucky. I did look at some pictures online and at least I won't have to have skin grafts or lose parts of my body. The doctor said it would leave a scar, but that's ok. Can't see it amid fat folds and wrinkles anyway. Moral: if you get bitten by a spider, get on antibiotics asap. My brother said he's known 3 people bitten by brown recluses and two of them had to walk around with IV antibiotics because they let it go on too long before seeing a doctor. And then, there's the story a co-worker told me about someone who had to have their spider bite lanced and baby spiders came out. I wish she hadn't told me about that.

long time, no see

I've been negligent. I admit it and I'm sorry for it. It's not because I haven't thought of you, dear blog, but other things have gotten in the way. Just life, mostly, but I have had two rounds of minor illnesses and I was out of town for a few days. Where to start....

Current interests include my new computer, except I had to send it back to the shop to get the screen fixed or replaced. I got it on ebay, a refurb Dell and it's great, except the screen was unacceptably dark even tho it was on the brightest setting. I only had it for a few days but really loved it, mainly because it had Games After Dark. I'm not much of a gamer because I'm no good at them, but I do like puzzle types of games. GAD has a game called Roof Rats that is totally addictive. I played about 300 games of it in the short few days I actually had the computer, and never improved, but it didn't matter. What I liked about the game was watching the little cartoon dog splat on the ground as I clicked and moved various colored blocks from under him. That probably doesn't make sense, but the whole concept of the game is that you find two adjacent blocks, click on them and they disappear. The things that are on top of the columns of colored blocks move down as you make the blocks disappear. The things on top (old lady, strong man, dog, mouse, boy on bike, etc.) will hop down to the ground and run off the screen at different levels of moving down their column of colored blocks. The idea is to get everyone down and get rid of as many blocks as you can. But my favorite part is watching the dog splat as it falls. That's it. It totally entertained me for hours and hours last weekend. It didn't matter that I seldom won or that my skills didn't improve, or that I am still at the easy level. Splat! goes the dog. And I love dogs.

Remind me to tell you about my spider bite. As soon as my computer gets back I'll show pics of my trip to Savannah, the tornado damage in Atlanta and my favorite restaurant in Georgia. (Shrimp & grits anyone?). And then there's the real dog I accidentally ran over (I really hated that and I really love dogs) and the dog belongs to a really crazy man. So you can see why I've been too busy to blog. On the other hand, when the other computer comes back, I might be too busy with Roof Rats to write......nah..I promise.

jammies

I raised quite a stir in my own living room by walking in with pajamas on. I haven't worn pj's in many years. Haven't owned any or even thought about it. I'm a gown kind of girl. My mother had some pj's that I had given her that stretched all out and were baggy, so she gave them to me. They fit me fine and I actually wore them last night. Soft cotton, coziness and the cuteness factor make these a keeper. I might get some more. Now, it feels good, but come heat and humidity....maybe not so good. I'll have to see. Imagine these green polka dots comin at 'cha.

Aren't you glad you tuned in to this drivel?

I thought that I had blogged a few days ago, but now I don't see it, so maybe I dreamed up the whole thing.

Anyway, it's March and my obsessions are diminishing quickly. Yee haww, spring is on it's way. It doesn't matter if it gets cold or snows or hails...spring is imminent now. The whole weekend was like spring outside and I think most people feel much better.

My deep thoughts have drifted to an event that occurred a few days ago at work. A young woman (under 30) witnessed someone who had a seizure. It really unnerved her and she came to the room I was in right afterward. She said she had never seen anyone have a seizure before. That stunned me. How could you live to adulthood and never see a seizure? I mentioned it to my husband, who said he had only seen a couple of seizures. That stunned me too. He asked me how many I had seen, and I couldn't answer. Lots and lots. I estimated maybe a couple of hundred. I went to elementary school with a girl named Kathy Thomas. She had seizures about every day for years. She was slow and this was in the days before special education. The teacher modified her work and Kathy often went home after her seizures, so she was absent for much of the time, but the seizures were not cause for alarm for anyone. It was pretty routine and we all got used to her falling out in the floor. And in all the jobs I've had, people have had seizures. Different kinds and to different severities, but frequent. I guess new medications have lessened the chances that people will have a seizure, so I suppose it is possible now to grow up and never see one. I wonder what happened to Kathy Thomas. I wonder as medicine advances, what people will think of in the future when they hear about these mental storms that used to take people down or make them behave so erratically. I never thought that people my age probably saw more seizures than people do now.