By all intent and purposes, I should have been dead when that spider bit me.  That I even survived is nothing but miraculous.

I was "on holiday", visiting my sister.  I was visiting Australia, Sydney, to be exact, which is where my sister lived.  I was having a great time, exploring the city, eating delecasies such as fried kangaroo and wombat pie, and delighting in the charming "Aussie-speak" of the "locals"; there was no inkling whatsoever of the disaster that was about to strike me in the middle of the night.

The third night of my trip, I kicked off my tennis shoes, just as I always did, before retiring to bed for the night.  I was beyond exhausted: we had spent yet another day shopping, going to the Sydney Opera House, then to the zoo, and did even more shopping.  I ws totally wiped out.  I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and go right to sleep.

During the night, I woke up having to use the restroom.  I got up, stuck my feet into my sneakers, and padded to the restroom.  It was while I was seated on the john when I felt something sharp on my foot.  It felt as if something had bitten me, hard.  It really hurt.

"YOW!!" I screamed.  I hurridly kicked my shoes off ... only, to my horror, to see a big, black spider (or was it shiny? I couldn't remember) scurry off behind the john.  Then the spider came running, quickly, towards me.  I jumped off the john, shut the door, and leaped right into bed, my heart hammering in my ears.  I soon fell into a troubled, uneasy sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I was shocked to discover that my right foot was swollen psat the ankle; it was swollen to twice its normal size, and the foot was an angry red color.  And it hurt; oh, boy, did it ever!!  It was some of the worst pain I had ever felt in my life!!

I called my sister, Dory, to come look at my leg/foot.  I was really worried.  Not only was my leg/foot swollen, I was also feeling chilled and shivery (or was it due to my irrational fear of spiders; just the very thought of spiders made my skin crawl and my blood turn ice-cold).  Dory immediately bundled me up in a blanket and led me to the car, where she then took me to the nearest hospital.  She said I had been bit by a poisonous spider, and I needed to get emergent care, fast.

~To be continued!~