Jon Gosselin had a big health scare just before the Thanksgiving holiday and amid a harrowing year.
The 44-year-old former reality star told the U.K. newspaper The Sun in comments posted on Friday, Nov. 26, that following a recent weekend of DJing, he was treated at a hospital after being bitten by a poisonous spider while sleeping in bed.
"It was my first real single weekend. I was totally ready to open up and meet new people and start fresh," said Jon, who announced his breakup from girlfriend Colleen Conrad in August. "But I woke after a night of music and fun and went to stand up only to fall back down on the bed. I was in excruciating pain."
He continued, "When I looked at my leg I realized it was twice the size and there's a red-looking blister with a large red circle around it. It kind of looked like a cigarette burn, but really raised."
Jon, who shared photos of his bite wound with the newspaper, said he drove to a hospital upon the discovery. "The doc immediately knew the pain was from a brown recluse," he said. "My entire leg had swollen up from the cellulitis. The doctor told me that I was lucky to come in because if you don't treat this you can lose limbs or die from a bacterial infection."
While the brown recluse spider is not native to Pennsylvania, where Jon lives, many have over the years hitchhiked to the state in shipment boxes from other parts of the country. The creatures are among the most dangerous spiders in the United States and their bite can cause necrotic tissue damage, which looks similar to a staph infection, and in rare cases, can lead to death if not treated in time.
This is not the first health scare Jon has suffered this year. In January, he revealed on The Dr. Oz Show that he was hospitalized for COVID-19 and was almost put on a ventilator.
Jon told The Sun he is on the mend following a course of antibiotics for his spider bite, which caused "days of severe pain." And the reality star, who rose to fame in 2007 with now-ex-wife Kate Gosselin and their twins and sextuplets on the TLC reality series Jon & Kate Plus 8, couldn't help but joke about the situation.
"I've never been bit by a spider in my whole life, unless you count Kate," he said. "But all jokes aside, let's face it, it hasn't been my year."