When Nursery Songs Go Bad

OK, kids! Pick up your kazoos and toot along with me!
"Itsy-bitsy spider crawled up my leg and bit the crap out of me ..."

Wait. That doesn't sound quite right, does it? But it's my story, so I get to tell it the way I want to.

Yesterday Jezebel and I walked out to the barn, and then we sat on the porch for a while watching the hummingbirds. After I'd been back in the house for an hour or so I saw the bites forming on my legs. Seven of them. Seven tiny bites turning into hot, red flashpoints with craters in the middle.

If there's anything I hate worse than mosquito bites it's spider bites. They swell almost instantly, they seep, they take weeks to heal, and they're agonizingly itchy. I've been slathering them with a prescription cream and now have bandaids over them so my pantlegs and socks don't rub against them.

I know it's an allergic reaction to the saliva injected (histamines and anti-coagulants abound). I've always had a degree of reaction but it's gotten much worse the last 2 summers with my use of Nexavar. Is it something to do with the anti-coagulants, given Nexavar's primary action on bloodflow? I guess I'll ask Dr G if he has an opinion on this.

In the meantime I'm in long pants - between the spiders and the mosquitoes my legs look bullet-riddled. Thank goodness I gave up bikinis and miniskirts a long time ago!