October 29

This morning at about 3:00 a.m. I had an unexpected meeting with a centipede who had decided to crawl into bed with me.  Centipedes are one of the ugliest of all of God's creatures.  Just thinking about them gives me the willies.  Here is the story.

In the night, I rolled over in bed and hit something prickly with my leg.  It was like the feeling you get from a tag in the back of a shirt--scratchy.  I remember rolling away and must have gone back to sleep.  Later I rolled over again and this time in a half-awake stage I thought that I would just kick the scratchy tag on the sheet off the bed.  The scratch was the body of the centipede that had crawled into our bed, and when my leg hit the centipede, he did not like it and decided to bite me.  Needless to say, I yelped, jumped out of bed, and screamed at Scott, "It bit me; it bit me!"  Scott is really good in a crisis. He jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and then asked me what happened.  After I explained that something had bitten me, he carefully pulled back the sheet and there was the centipede hanging onto the side of the mattress.  Scott got his slipper and tried to kill it while it hung there.  We did not know then that centipedes are as hard to kill as vampires; one needs a spike to the heart before it dies.

Moving on, Scott gave the centipede a heavy whack with his shoe and the thing dropped off the bed and scurried under it.  Although my leg was really burning, I ran and got the broom and started to sweep it back and forth under the bed.  Nothing moved.  We had heard that centipedes were really fast, but we have never seen one move before, so we had no idea where it could have gotten.  Finally Scott said that we had to take care of my leg which burned like crazy and was starting to swell.  He picked up the bedspread (which was on the other side of the bed from where the centipede was) to put in back on the bed and the centipede dropped onto the floor.  The original whack Scott gave it must have hurt it, because it laid there just long enough for Scott to step on it.  When he picked up his foot, the centipede tried to crawl away thankfully not very quickly and so he stepped on it again grinding with all his might.  It quit moving.

We got on the internet to see how to handle the bite.  It said to wash the bite with antiseptic soap and then to either heat it or ice it.  Wash it we did.  Heat it we did.

Scott got dressed and then he gave me a blessing which promised me that I would be fine and would be able to have a normal day.  The bite would not interfere with our work.

Afterwards, Scott told me we had to go to the hospital.  He was really worried, because we have had two young single adults who have ended up in the hospital from centipede bites.  Well, I have been to the public hospital and I was not going.  After a short discussion, Scott called the Suva Private Hospital which is technically closed at that hour and asked to speak with a nurse. He asked the nurse how to handle the bite, and she said to buy some kind of cream.  At 3:30 a.m????  So Scott asked her what the Fijian's do for centipede bites.  They cut an onion and rub the bite with it which is what I did.  It took some of the sting away.

Scott went to bed, but I just could not sleep where the centipede's friends might come.  I sat on the couch with my legs up reading and rubbing the bite whenever the sting got bad.

My leg quit swelling.  I did not get the usual rash that comes with a centipede bite, and although the bite stung all day, the sting was not constant nor was it awfully painful--just enough to remind me that I had been bitten by a centipede.

THE CENTIPEDE

Without being too gross, you can see he is pretty mangled, and that much of his insides are spread all over the floor.  He was about six inches long.

Rest in peace ye fiend of the infernal pit!  (This last was written by Scott.  He is so funny)