This past saturday was a beautiful day in North Texas and in the afternoon after stopping to pick up some plants to add to the landscape I went to an established flower bed and began to pull some pesky weeds.
I reached down to pull some weeds from around a clump of day lillies when i was bitten by something on my right front forefinger. it hurt like a bitch and when i looked at my hand there was a large, red bite mark and my finger began to swell at once.
I came inside to ask the hosue mate if he had any idea of what could have caused such a bite mark and he had no idea and suggested I ice it, which I did.
ten minutes later ALL of my fingers had swollen, with the stricken finger turning black and blue. Very odd. The icing did nothing to reduce the swelling or diminish the pain.
House mate said i should go to the emergency room. I never go to the doctor and was not about to go running in for a little bite on my finger, but within the next hour my entire hand had swollen up like a balloon and the swelling continured up to my wrist and up my arm to my elbow.
It was then that hosuemate literallly grabbed me by the neck and put me in his truck and drove me to the ER.
Once seen by the doctor, he examined the bite mark, pried my super swollen fingers apart and discovered a second bite mark and his eyes grew very large and seemed as though he was trying to conceal great panic and he screamed out "COPPERHEAD BITE!!!" and with that all hell broke loose.
people began running and yelling and i was thrown onto a gurney and pushed at full sprint through the hospital as several people wererunning along side.
As soon as the bed stopped, i was hooked up to every sort of monitor one can imagine, my left arm was stuck full of several needles and drips and i heard worried people say things like "Amputation - fingers or hand?, anti-venom, heart....". the look of sheer terror on these peoples faces could not be masked.
"What the fuck was happenign to me?!" I wondered.
More tests, more screaming people, more I.V.s
and more monitors and more nurses and more doctors. I must have been given something to knock me out because i don't remember anything until i awakend in the Intensive Care Unit where i remained for three days.
It seems I had 2 anti-venom treatments at fifteen thousand dollars each. I had a round the clock army of nurses looking in on me every 15 minutes, i had a camera in my room to monitor me on a live feed the whole time.
When i was released, the doctor told me had i been but ten minutes later, i would have been in full heart failure and would likely have had at least my fingers if not my entire hand amputated. Holy SHIT!
In seeing people since then, many nurses included - all of them are absolutely dumbfounded, shocked, amazed that I not only lived, but am completely unharmed and can't believe the photos of my bitten, venom filled hand and arm from Sunday until today (Thursday).
I have since learned just how serious it is to sustain a bite from a venemous snake and of the dire consequences that could have been.
It was very surreal when I was admitted adn the screaming and yelling and running began. I wasn't afraid, i wasn't concerned at all. this is a testament to coplete ignorance of the seriousness of the stituation, but just in case i turned over my cell hone to house mate and told him if the worst happend, who to call and text, etc. Frotunately, that wasn't necessary.
All is well now five days later. no muscle or tissue damage or anything. Back to life as usual as though none of it ever happened. It seems I am one very fortunate guy to have been 10 minutes from dead just a few days ago.
I reached down to pull some weeds from around a clump of day lillies when i was bitten by something on my right front forefinger. it hurt like a bitch and when i looked at my hand there was a large, red bite mark and my finger began to swell at once.
I came inside to ask the hosue mate if he had any idea of what could have caused such a bite mark and he had no idea and suggested I ice it, which I did.
ten minutes later ALL of my fingers had swollen, with the stricken finger turning black and blue. Very odd. The icing did nothing to reduce the swelling or diminish the pain.
House mate said i should go to the emergency room. I never go to the doctor and was not about to go running in for a little bite on my finger, but within the next hour my entire hand had swollen up like a balloon and the swelling continured up to my wrist and up my arm to my elbow.
It was then that hosuemate literallly grabbed me by the neck and put me in his truck and drove me to the ER.
Once seen by the doctor, he examined the bite mark, pried my super swollen fingers apart and discovered a second bite mark and his eyes grew very large and seemed as though he was trying to conceal great panic and he screamed out "COPPERHEAD BITE!!!" and with that all hell broke loose.
people began running and yelling and i was thrown onto a gurney and pushed at full sprint through the hospital as several people wererunning along side.
As soon as the bed stopped, i was hooked up to every sort of monitor one can imagine, my left arm was stuck full of several needles and drips and i heard worried people say things like "Amputation - fingers or hand?, anti-venom, heart....". the look of sheer terror on these peoples faces could not be masked.
"What the fuck was happenign to me?!" I wondered.
More tests, more screaming people, more I.V.s
and more monitors and more nurses and more doctors. I must have been given something to knock me out because i don't remember anything until i awakend in the Intensive Care Unit where i remained for three days.
It seems I had 2 anti-venom treatments at fifteen thousand dollars each. I had a round the clock army of nurses looking in on me every 15 minutes, i had a camera in my room to monitor me on a live feed the whole time.
When i was released, the doctor told me had i been but ten minutes later, i would have been in full heart failure and would likely have had at least my fingers if not my entire hand amputated. Holy SHIT!
In seeing people since then, many nurses included - all of them are absolutely dumbfounded, shocked, amazed that I not only lived, but am completely unharmed and can't believe the photos of my bitten, venom filled hand and arm from Sunday until today (Thursday).
I have since learned just how serious it is to sustain a bite from a venemous snake and of the dire consequences that could have been.
It was very surreal when I was admitted adn the screaming and yelling and running began. I wasn't afraid, i wasn't concerned at all. this is a testament to coplete ignorance of the seriousness of the stituation, but just in case i turned over my cell hone to house mate and told him if the worst happend, who to call and text, etc. Frotunately, that wasn't necessary.
All is well now five days later. no muscle or tissue damage or anything. Back to life as usual as though none of it ever happened. It seems I am one very fortunate guy to have been 10 minutes from dead just a few days ago.
