Bug Bite

Yesterday morning I got bit by something while I was doing Madeline's hair before school.  When I finished her pony tail and looked down I had a big white welt where I got bit.  Once the girls were on the bus I spotted a huge skeeter on the powder room door.  He went to meet his maker courtesy of the weekly church bulletin.  Fitting, right?

My arm was itchy all day but I pretty much left the bite alone since I was otherwise focused on cleaning the basement and purging toys.  I scratched it a few times but nothing over the top.  At midnight my arm was still itchy but the bite was still a raised white welt like it was that morning.

I woke up this morning to a bright red welt and the surrounding area of my arm was also red.  I pointed out to Bryan that it was sort of funny how the bite was traveling along my vein and it looked puffy.  He took one look at it and freaked out.

What I thought was an odd little bug bite that was a bit interesting to look at he thought was pretty serious.  I walked away when he told me I needed to get to a doctor or an ER to have it checked out.  He was concerned that it was blood poisoning.  I wasn't.  My brother had that when I was a kid and I recalled it being far worse that what I saw on my arm.

I sat down in the dining room to eat my breakfast and check email and decided to google bug bite and blood poisoning just to reassure myself that Bryan was overreacting.  That's when I realized that he was right.  I held my arm up to a picture I saw of someone who had to go to the ER and realized that maybe I should see a doctor.

We ended up going to an immediate care center not too far from the hospital.  The receptionist, the nurse and the doctor all seemed to have the same reaction that Bryan did.  So now I'm on an antibiotic for the next week.  

My arm is really hurting me now and the bite has a second vein now that is traveling up my arm.  The doctor tells me it will take about 24 hours after initiating the antibiotics for me to see a reduction in the redness.  If the redness travels much further up my arm I'll have to go to the ER so they can treat it more aggressively.  So I've been given a list of things I need to watch out for in case this turns for the worst.

I'm glad I showed Bryan the interesting looking bug bite because if I hadn't I might have let it go too long.  I know the blood poisoning is serious because I vividly remember the frenzy from when my brother had a bright red streak going almost all the way up his arm.  I certainly alarmed my parents when I called them at 7:45 this morning to ask them what they recalled about how my brother's arm looked when I was still trying to decided if I really needed to see a doctor.  Honestly, if it wasn't for Bryan insisting that I need to see a doctor now, I probably wouldn't have taken it seriously until it was nearing my shoulder.

I'm hoping the antibiotic I'm on does its job so I don't wind up in the ER.