Like the title? I thought about entitling this rant as “heel, toe!” as if ordering the toe to calm down, but I decided I liked “heal, toe!” better because the rant’s about my injured toe. Still, it’s funny, right? I mean, get it? Heel? Toe? Yeah, I guess I’m really about the only person around who’d get a kick out of even thinking about the play on words for a rant that only three or four people will read. Meh, on with the post.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the porch with Kitty, and I’ve already ranted (and continue to rant) about being contantly bitten by mosquitos. Saturday night (or afternoon, it’s hard to tell) I got bit on my left big toe, which is nothing big because I’ve been bit on most of my other toes as well as several fingers, so having a digit with a bite on it was nothing new. I used my beloved Bite MD anti-itch stick on it and went on with my evening. I noticed that the anti-itch stick didn’t seem to be doing much of anything for my toe as compared to all the other bites, but I figured it was just a really big bite or maybe I didn’t get enough stuff on it. Sunday I put even more anti-itch stuff on it and kept doing that until I visited the rents’ for Aunt Pamela’s birthday. It bugged me all day, aching and itching, but I was wearing shoes for the first time in about a week, so I figured the sock was just irritating it. When I got home, I put even more anti-itch stuff on it and then played WoW for quite a while. My toe continued to bug me, and the more it bugged me, the more I figured it wasn’t a mosquito bite. Ian and I decided it was probably a spider bite instead of a mosquito bite. After all, my toe was swollen much more than any of my other bites and it wasn’t reacting to the anti-itch stick. Spider bite. Yay.

This isn’t the first spider bite I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s not even the second, third, or fourth. The first spider bites I got were all at once and on my legs. Each bite (there were three or four; it’s been about fifteen years so I’m not sure exactly how many) swelled up to a welt of about four inches in diameter. I’m not kidding. Tiny, tiny bites I almost couldn’t see swelled up to where it was about as wide as the side of my calf muscles (I was 13 or 14; my legs were smaller). I simply have a sensitivity to insect bites. It’s not quite an allergy like those that cause anaphylaxis, but it’s irritating. Bee stings, mosquito bites, tick bites, sweat bees–it doesn’t matter what insect it is, if it can cause a skin reaction such as inflammation and itching and swelling, I’ll get it whereas most people would get a little bump if that. It’s fun, really. Absolutely hilarious. Ha ha ha.

Ian went to bed and I stayed up and played WoW some more. When I got up, it hurt so much to put pressure on my left foot that I didn’t know what hit me. I rubbed my toe a little to try and figure out what was going on, and that was about the stupidest thing I could have done. I hobbled into the bedroom, waking Ian up who got up and looked up spider bite remedies on-line, coming up with two: cold compress or baking soda and water mixture. Several sites also reccommended a pain killer. I hopped on that, then hopped on ice packs. I don’t know that the ice packs did anything more than just numbing it, but you know what? Who cares?! Deadening pain isn’t a bad thing, especially if it means I can walk more than two steps at a time.

Monday was spent pretty much on the couch with an ice pack on my foot until it melted, then eventually I’d get up and get another one. I’ve gone through every ice pack we have (six, I think) at least three or four times. Later in the day, I attempted the baking soda and water mixture. Talk about strange chemical properties–and messy. After gooping up my toe for about twenty minutes, the stuff had hardened and was falling off and didn’t seem to do a damn thing. Back to Tylenol and ice packs. I even tried Neosporin like Dad suggested, but that just made my toe slippery and shiny. Whoopie.

So now it’s Tuesday. The swelling seems to have gone down a bit, and it’s not nearly as pink as it had been. It still aches to walk on, but I can at least walk on it so long as I flat-foot it and don’t bend the balls of my feet much. It also still itches, so I try to avoid touching it with anything, even the cuff of my pants or the carpet. The only thing that I put on it that doesn’t seem to irritate it is an ice pack. Actually, it seems to feel best with an ice pack on it whether it’s frozen or not. Have I mentioned how much this whole situation sucks? The only way it could suck more is if it were a typically lethal spider like a brown recluse. Luckily, we’re not likely to have any recluses around here because of the sheer ton of other varieties of spiders we’ve got–white ones, brown ones, black ones, multi-colored ones–lots of spiders. Our porch and cellar are covered in cobwebs, and I guess it was only a matter of time before I got bit. Hopefully the next time won’t be on one of my damn toes. I think I’m going to stay inside for a while. At least until I’m back on two, non-swollen feet.