So here is a little story about a little spider. He is oh about 1/8" around & likes to jump. Well, this little spider is also poisonous as are a LOT of the smaller spiders here in Africa apparently. Now why the Lord didn't make the big ones.. and I mean BIG ones (like Max who is about 3" across, or the yellow & black dude who is a tad bigger)...the poisonous ones & the little ones harmless, I don't know. Would be SO much easier to avoid you know? Oh well, my brother Mike says there is probably a good Sunday school lesson in that somewhere but that is for another time.

Anyway, this little guy at some point in time managed to bite me just under my chin. No biggie..at first I thought it was a mosquito bite.. or maybe a pimple (ya ya gross). So I cleaned it up & then went on to Nellmapius with the team. Now we were having a Christmas party for the kids on Saturday. It was held on the grounds behind the library.. a big field with lots weeds & red-dirt-clay that this area is famous for. We played with the kids..hung out on the ground getting our hair done (yes even Mike) and our nails done and just sitting down cuddling some. So on Sunday I noticed my chin was a tad sore... hmmmm. By Monday it was beginning to swell and look funny, not quite so much like a mosquito bite or pimple any more. By Tuesday it hurt..I had to take Advil every few hours to get thru the day and the swelling and uh..stuff was beginning. That night I tried some homeopathic remedy that came highly recommended... and shall we just say that besides making me smell like an onion all night, something Mike enjoyed immensely *giggle*, didn't work. I made it thru Wednesday because it was a 1/2 day, but that was it. ByThursday night the swelling was bad, I could hardly move my mouth & the "little" bite was about the size of a cigarette burn & starting to hollow out... (pretty cool huh? uTube here I come!!)

Needless to say, the doctor was called on Thursday afternoon & he agreed to meet us Friday am at his office WHICH was really nice of him because today, Friday, is Heritage Day and a National Holiday. Upon arriving at his office he took one look & said "yup spider bite. However, it had gotten abscessed, probably because of the party outside on Saturday or whatever, but there you have it. The only way to clean this baby out was.. well you guessed it pressure & scrape AND apparently the use of any kind of numbing agent causes just enough swelling that you cannot clean the wound sufficiently soooo, you guessed it, no drugs.. Thank goodness for Mike's hand & my remembering how to do the old Lamaze breathing - even tho I could only use my nose. Ok so I won't go into any more details except to say Mike's face when white then slightly green then just shocked.. lol AND I am proud to say I didn't throw up OR pass out... yay me!

So, here is sit on the bed loaded down with meds .. I get to put a salve on this baby 2x a day; pain meds 3x a day, hard core antibiotics 3x a day AND another antibiotic fixer upper thing that keeps the hard core ones from hurting my stomach or giving me a yeast infection.. Whooo hooo

Meals are still having to be soft, but all in all its cool. The swelling is down & the pain is a lot less. But in the meantime the good thing is folks don't have to listen to me talk all the time... Mike gets a word in edgewise AND actually can lead the conversation. Good lesson for me to slow'er down I think.

Man, what will come next eh friends? Stay tuned for the next Gooch-family adventure
Much Love, Jeanine & Mike