Reclusive Behavior

Last Friday morning at work, I noticed a small painful spot on my leg, on my right shin. At some point that morning, something had bitten me. Since bug bites don't usually bother me too much (mosquitoes find me unappetizing), I noted it and then ignored it. But as the day went on, the bite spot went purple in color, got more painful, and a red ring started spreading around it.  Huh.  That's a bit unusual.

The redness around it spread out quite a bit as the day went on, despite my best efforts to ignore it and not touch it.  By Saturday morning, the purple color remained, the redness had spread, and I had a terrific rash as a bonus.  On the plus side, the awesome bonus rash was entirely covered by shorts and a t-shirt, so I didn't look like a leper.  But the bite site itself was pretty damn painful, as was the rest of my leg, and I'm pretty sure my leg might have looked a bit leper-like.  Grrrr.

By Sunday morning, the redness had quit spreading and the bonus rash was receding. At that point, I figured the worst was over.

Fast forward to yesterday.  By the end of the day, the place where I had gotten bitten a WEEK ago - and the entire surrounding area - itched like a sonofabitch.  Seriously, I'm pretty spoiled in this area.  Mosquitoes don't like me, and my skin rarely reacts to anything, so I don't typically get 'itchy' spots.  By this morning, an area as large as my entire hand (base of palm to tip of fingers) was raised, red, and itchy as hell.  Let's not even mention the fact that the itchiness woke me up multiple times last night.  Not cool. 

I threw in the towel and managed to get an appointment to see a doc this afternoon.  Diagnosis?

Brown Recluse Bite, of the mild variety.  Apparently I managed to brush him off before he got a good hold.  There's nothing to be done, which is fine by me.  I'm just glad the sucker didn't get a good bite; I can't even imagine how bad that must be.