Talk about coincedence

My neighbor came over yesterday and asked me if I could teller her what to do about a lump on her arm. She pulled up her sleeve and on her for arm was the nastiest lump about the size of half a boiled egg. I have seen one like it once before a few years back. I was multi colored and very sick looking.

What it is, is a bite from a Brown recluse spider which we also have plenty of here in West Florida. I don't know if I can get a photo but let me warn you don't look at it any where near lunch time.

What happens in the case of a bite from a Brown recluse is much worse then a widow, The poison makes you sick, it takes about 3 days to notice the bite so the poison is already circulated in your system, it can kill you but also, actually starts to digest the skin and muscle in the area of the bite and will make a huge rotten area around the bite usually 3 to 5 inches across. It is nasty.

Fortunately like other spiders Recluses generally avoid human contact if they can. Both bites I have seen were in areas wher it appears the spider was trapped between the skin and clothing one on the fore arm and one in the kidney area of the back. As a side note both were hot blonds (females).

Yes , they are indeed nasty little creature. I got nailed by one a few years back I believe it was when I was splitting wood. Did not notice until a few days later I had this great pain coming from my ankle area. It was not pretty. The flesh was already starting to die around the bite.
I went to the doctors office and while I was in the waiting room and wouldn't you know it - a video about the brown recluse spider came on. he gave me antibiotics- it looked infected and sent me home. I have a scar where the spider bite was
but luckily that's all.

I hate those spiders and the ticks - had Lyme 2 times- if you work in your yard make sure you do a tick check - trust me you do not want Lymes

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As a side note both were hot blonds (females).

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What, the spiders?? ;)

Yep, both BR spiders and those dinky deer ticks are nasty. Luckily around here, we're on the extreme edges of both of their ranges. But as Kalvlin suggets, be your own advocate when visiting a medical providers and give them idea of what you think happened to you. And keep after it if things don't get better.

Yep, got a BR bite that put me in the hospital a few nights. Got a cool hole in my arm as a souvenir. Bad stuff there.

Mine was about ten years ago on my middle finger. Spider was in my leather work gloves when I put them on. I didn't think anything of it until six hours later when I couldn't bend my finger. It was a BR and I ended up in hospital for 2 days. Almost lost my communication finger! BRs are the devil in my book.

We have the wolf spiders and plenty of ticks, nothing poisonous really.
One horror story with ticks
A local man hit a moose in a sub compact vehicle. the vehicle took out the moose's legs and it fell onto the car breaking the window and stove up the frame enough to pin the man inside.
Unfortunately for the pinned man the moose was infested with ticks and as time passed they came down onto the man by the thousands and thousands. He couldn't do much about it until rescue crews got him out....
I can deal with a dozen or so on me but that story always makes my skin crawl.