Last Wednesday at about 8:30 p.m. AristMommy, Bugaboo and I were sitting in the front yard watching the kids play when all of a sudden we heard Pootie Pie scream and start then yelling. “Get me out of here! Get me out!” ArtistMommy jumped up and started running then Bugaboo sprinted past her. I grabbed Bunny and waited, a bit bewildered. Was this really something that warranted all this? ArtistMommy and her husband (where did he come from?) were guiding a hysterical Pootie to the house. She was crying and repeated, “A snake! A snake bit me! In the sewer! A snake!” BeeMan fell off of the skateboard and it shot down the street and into the storm drain along the curb. Pootie shimmied down in there like she had done dozens of times before to retrieve it.
We brought her to the faucet to rinse her left hand and look for bite marks. After rinsing the blood we only saw one mark on her ring finger but then a second pinprick point of blood came up so we knew it had been fangs. I had no idea what to do. How do you know if it was a venomous snake or not? What do I do? I didn’t have to think; ArtistMommy did it for me and told me to take her in. I squeezed her wrist really hard. Isn’t that what cowboys do to keep the venom from going up into their heart? Then they slice it open and suck the poison out (don’t forget to spit then, not swallow). She screamed, “Mommy it hurts!” I said I know. She said, “No! You’re squeezing me too tight!” Oh, sorry.
On the way to E-Care about a mile away Pootie started crying and asking if she was going to die. “Mommy, just tell me the truth!” I told her no because we were on the way to get help. She wasn’t lying out in the desert somewhere all alone without medical attention. She calmed down a little, but the pain kept her very upset.
After E-Care took Pootie’s vitals, which were fine and normal and our insurance info and credit card, someone came in and said they weren’t equipped to handle snake bites so they were calling an ambulance to take her to a hospital ER.
The ambulance came for her at about 9:15 and I followed in the car and was standing outside of it as they unloaded her. Inside the ER they were waiting for her and put us in a room. They took her vitals and our insurance and credit card information and then told us they aren’t equipped to handle snake bites. What? I was upset but didn’t really have it in me to throw any kind of fit. What would that get me anyway? If they don’t have anti-venin, they don’t have it. I think the ambulance service should know who has it and who doesn’t though and not waste anyone’s time like that.
By now Pootie’s finger was black and her hand was swollen like a club. Her wrist was blowing up too and it hurt all the way up into her armpit. They gave her some morphine and some Zofran (anti-nausea) at 9:40 while we waited for the next ambulance to come from Children’s Medical Center of Dallas about 30 miles away. They got there at about 10:15 p.m. and I assured her I’d be at the hospital as soon as possible and went home to pick up a bag Bugaboo and Dupree had very thoughtfully packed for us. Even if I had gone straight there I wouldn’t have been able to keep up because they took off with lights and sirens.
See that peace sign she drew on her fingernail? I think it served as a target. I keep telling all of them to stop writing on themselves. Maybe they'll listen now. (Ha.)
Later I talked to the ambulance driver, and I think she got to Children’s at about 10:45 but I didn’t get there until 11:35. He also told me she would have been air lifted but the helicopter was down for annual maintenance that night. Dang it. That would have been awesome.
A nurse came in and updated me. It takes one hour for the anti-venin CroFab to be ready once the pharmacy mixes it up and she was due to have it at about 12:15. They would give her 6 vials of an initial dose and then 2 more vials every 6 hours as a maintenance. Up to 6 extra vials could be given after the initial 6 if that didn’t seem to stop the symptoms. She had gotten another dose of morphine and Zofran but was still in a lot of pain. It hadn’t helped even a little. Plus now she had been vomiting. One doctor said it was from the morphine but another said it was from the venom. Whatever. She finally got some Vicodin and that helped ease the pain a little, although throughout this whole ordeal she was never pain-free and she has a very high pain tolerance. When she was in first grade she broke both the bones in her forearm and never cried.
They said they were going to admit her. One resident, with a meaningful look, told me they were going to send her to ICU because she was real sick. But another jumped in and said they didn’t have any other beds to send her to anyway. I didn’t know who was more right but it scared me. The pain and swelling hadn’t stopped and was going further and further up her arm. It was a very uncomfortable night in a very hard chair next to her bed with neither one of us getting much sleep. It seemed like she was some kind of celebrity because residents, medical students, paramedics and nurses that had nothing to do with her care kept coming in to ask if they could look at her hand because they had never seen a snake bite before. Plus they were pumping her full of IV fluids and the only bathroom was down the hall. She had to pee every couple hours and it was a big ordeal with a useless hand with a rotten finger.
At 6 a.m. Thursday the swelling and pain stopped progressing up her arm at about her bicep area, this was after 12 vials of CroFab. We were moved into the ER Annex, a kind of a holding area while waiting for a regular room upstairs to open up.
Bugaboo and Dupree showed up around 10 a.m. and Pootie’s eyes lit up when she saw her sister. She perked up and seemed OK for the first time. It was very good to see.
They finally moved us to a regular room upstairs at about 2 p.m. She had been seen by so many doctors, residents and medical students I couldn’t keep them all straight.
SSB flew home early and got to the hospital about at about 5 p.m. with Snickety and Taz. BeeMan had fallen asleep after school so Dupree stayed with him. Taz was very attentive and tried to help her in any way possible. That night my cousin called. I hadn’t spoken to him since I saw him at a family reunion a few years ago so it was very sweet of him to call and check on us. Pootie wondered why he called and why everyone was being so nice and concerned and calling. I told her because she could have died and she started to cry. “I didn’t know I could have died! You told me I wasn’t going to die!” Yes I did and she didn’t die did she? So then she asked “Well I didn’t die so why are people still so interested?” I told her because a lot of things still could have happened, like she could have lost her finger or several other things but none of that was going to happen now because she was getting better. She just cried more. “I didn’t know that!” Well. It’s good she didn’t know that then.
After being seen by a couple specialists they all decided we could go home Friday afternoon after she got a tetanus shot. She ended up getting somewhere between 24 and 30 doses of CroFab. The information sheet that was in the room said it costs the hospital $900 per vial. I wonder how much they charge the patient/insurance company???
We don’t know yet if there will be any damage or scarring. We have follow up appointments next week.
Lesson #1 – Stay out of the sewer and drains.
Lesson #2 - If any of the other kids get bit by a snake I will not waste my time with E-Care, local hospitals or even 911. I will just drive straight to
