True Story: one FHM reader's near death experience

Words: Dale Losher, Pekin, IL

It was a quiet morning at 5:00 am on May 6th and I was lying in bed with my wife. I felt a slight tickle on my upper thigh of my left leg under the covers and proceeded to brush it away. As my hand struck the blanket I felt a slight stinging sensation on my leg. Little did I know that moment was going to change my life forever.

I lifted the covers to see the outline of a small, brown, quarter-sized spider on my bed. My wife woke up startled and asked what it was. I said, “It looks like a spider. Hold on” and ran to the bathroom, grabbed some tissue and quickly grabbed the spider and threw it in the toilet. My wife came into the bathroom to look at the spider and all we could say was that it was a big spider.

I flushed the toilet with a feeling of personal victory. Almost within the hour the bite area swelled to the size of a quarter. That afternoon I went to the doctor and he asked me if it was a brown recluse. I have never seen a brown recluse before but despite previously believing that they were only in southern Illinois, both my wife and me agreed that it quite possibly was after hearing the description.

The doctor gave me some antibiotics and circled the area with a marker and sent me on my way. Later that evening a white infected area formed in the bite site. I am told this is called the “bulls eye” and is a definite tell tale sign of a brown recluse bite. The area around the bite site turned blue, dark red and had gone outside of the circled area.

My wife took me to OSF Emergency room where they rushed me to surgery. I spent eight days with an open cut at the bite area to drain the spiders toxins from it and almost 24 hours a day on IV antibiotics and pain medication. In the end I had a 5 inch in diameter area of dead tissue, a result from the toxins, cut out of my upper leg. My next step in 8 days is skin grafting, which I am told is skin taken from another part of my body and place on the cut away area. But that area will never look the same. I am a resident of Pekin in a suburb type area. Never would I have thought this type of spider was right here in Pekin or central Illinois.

Day One