[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Irrational childhood fears

[Iggy McSnurd]

>illyana:
>Brown Recluses are pretty scary, because they are so deadly - good
>thing we don't have those here in AZ. But venom/poison really has
>nothing to do with my fear of spiders - I just think they're creepy. I
>hate it when people remind me that most spiders are harmless or aren't
>going to bite me, because that has nothing to do with my fear of them!
>They just have too many legs and want to crawl all over me!!

Iggy here:

I think the thing that freaks me most about their venom... well, two things
really... ok... well here they are:

1:  Their venom is Necrotic... meaning that it simply kills off the tissue
as it spreads through the body, leaving huge patches of dead and rotting
tissue in its wake if the area isn't excised early enough.  (Fortunately,
it's not a hemotoxin per-se... it spreads through the skin rather than the
blood, so you can remove it simply by cutting out the infected areas.)  I'd
rather have a black widow bite me and be sick as a dog for a couple of days
rather than have my skin begin to rot on my own body.

2:  There is a small chance (but still a chance) that you will have a
genetic reaction to the toxin, which is even worse if it somehow gets into
your bloodstream... If you are one of the very few people with this
reaction, then your body alters so that (for the rest of your life) any
break in the skin that you get spreads and becomes a bloody lesion.  Even
barking your knuckle or cutting your finger can become a serious problem
that will require a trip to the hospital.  Sometimes the lesions can occur
on their own as well.


Just some stuff to give you some extra willies before Halloween.

Iggy McSnurd