ASSIGNMENTS:
|
|
Tamzin Buchan
Adelaide, AUSTRALIA
|
|
REPORTS:
PREVIOUS NEXT
|
|
|
The scar in the photograph happened when I was about 13, now I am 27 and I still have it. That is 14 years without much change.
I got the scar in a very passive way, in fact I was sleeping, although I still remember waking in a half dream and wondering why my pajama pants felt so tight on my hips. It sounds more sinister than it is, although spiders are a little sinister.
At first I had no idea what this huge red pussing sore on my hip was, and I found that I had another smaller one above my right breast, close to my arm pit. I was a bit self conscious, being 13 and all, so I thought I had a boil, I was familiar with pimples but this was so red and so sore, that I thought, this must be a boil.
Because I was embarrassed that I had somehow managed to get a boil, I didn't say anything to my mother all day, but it started to get worse and worse, the sore itself was only about 1cm squared but it was red and swollen about 5cm around it, so I finally said to my mum, "mum I think I have a boil or something". She had a look and freaked out and drove me to the hospital (it was late at night, probably about 18 hours after I'd been bitten).
We lived in the country at the time about a 20 minute drive from the nearest town. When the doctor saw me he said it seemed to be a white-tailed spider bite, by this time it was really sore and my whole hip was red and swollen. Essentially the bite had turned into an ulcer, which is what happens with white-tailed spider bites, and I later found out that if left untreated for too long they can develop into gang green.
I was given heavy duty antibiotics and had the sore cleaned and bandaged and had to go in for check ups a few times. The doctor told me that the spiders like to crawl into piles of clothes on the floor, so what must have happened is that the spider was in my pajamas when I picked them up off the floor and put them on.
My mum thought this would make me keep my room tidy and stop leaving my clothes in piles on the floor, but it didn't really, and I probably still do the same thing.
Although the scar doesn't look that dramatic I think I have it for life, the bite took ages to heal and the scar never got any smaller, I guess I was lucky that it didn't get any worse. It still tingles a bit when I recall the story but I wouldn't go back and change a thing, its like having my own special spider man scar.
|
|
|
|
|
