Life in Pieces by Dawn O'Porter

Author:Dawn O'Porter [O’Porter, Dawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-09-02T17:00:00+00:00

PIECE EIGHT

The High Life

23 April

Isolation Update – How fat are his feet?

Well, last night was about as relaxing as a kick in the fanny. We put the Cats film on (it’s so weird), and about half an hour in we had to turn it off because Valentine woke up screaming. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life into his room, where he groaned, ‘Mummy, my foot hurts.’ I looked at his foot. Two tiny red dots. I’m no David Attenborough, but I know a spider bite when I see one.

MY BABY!

I called Chris in and we turned the lights up and looked at it. Chris was straight on the iPad googling images of spider bites and yup, that’s absolutely what it was. No swelling, no major redness, but he had woken up because it was sore, so our parenting whistles were tooting (NO idea what that was supposed to mean). I stripped the bed and searched for beasties while Valentine waved his foot in the air. He seemed fine. No fever, so issues, just two red dots. But still … MY BABY.

The problem with googling something like ‘spider bite’ is that you’re faced with sheer horror. Luckily, Valentine’s bite didn’t look like a black widow one, but it was the ‘brown recluse’ I was worried about because I see them a lot in the garden. They are the gnarly cousin of the black widow; not as reclusive as they sound, they love a good chomp on a human foot. I see black widows a lot too, but I presumed we’d have known immediately if he was bitten by one of those. Anyway, Chris showed Valentine the pictures of spiders and Val pointed at the brown recluse and said, ‘That one. That one was on the grass and it bit my foot.’

Super.

I text a friend whose kid got bitten by one last year, and she asked if there was any swelling. I said no, and sent her a picture of Valentine’s foot. She went quiet on text, and I immediately knew why.

‘It’s OK – that’s not swelling, he’s just porky,’ I texted hastily.

‘THANK FUCK, I WAS FUCKING PANICKING,’ she replied.

My sweet baby and his big fat feet.

We did some more searching and saw that most spider bites are nothing more than a bee sting, but we obviously didn’t trust that. I put Valentine in my bed, so he could sleep with me. The plan being, if he seemed in any discomfort at all, I would take him straight to A & E. I also left a message for the doctor on call at his paediatrician, who called me back quickly to say that really, the only spider bites they worry about in LA are the black widows, and if he had been bitten by one of them, I wouldn’t be calling her, I’d have gone to the emergency room hours ago. Cripes.

But still, I wouldn’t let him out of my sight. It was a horrible hour, mostly because the last place we want to go right now is a hospital.

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