a little off topic

My dog Toots had an encounter with a rattle snake this past weekend.  In all my years of hiking and climbing in California I have seen dozens of rattlers, yet I’ve never known anyone to get bitten (in CA).  So when Toots ran up to me cowering and hid by my feet on Sunday, I assumed he’d been stung by a bee.  That’s exactly how he responded to a bee sting months ago.  However a half an hour later it looked as though he had a golf ball in his mouth.  That’s a big reaction, I thought.

Well another twenty minutes later and his lip on the left side of his face drooped inches lower than usual.  Still thinking it was a bee sting I thought maybe he was experiencing anaphylactic shock.  I investigated and saw a drop of blood next to his nose.   A puncture wound.  Not good.

I was about to get a fast education on dealing with poisonous snake bites.

I called to find the closest pet ER.  As we headed to the pet hospital I began reading up on snake bites.  I wanted to know what I needed to do NOW in order to help.  This was the most difficult piece of info to discern- suggestions ran the full gamut from lancing the bite area, to sucking out the poison, to doing nothing.  Nothing didn’t feel very proactive, yet without expert input nothing was exactly what I was going to do.

I also found out that sometimes only one puncture wound is evident, that swelling that continues to spread is common, and that sometimes a snake will only inject a small amount of venom.  I really clung to this last point.

It turns out doing nothing prior to arriving at the pet hospital was the best thing to do.  At the pet hospital the veterinarian took a blood sample to get a platelet count.  The bite had occurred two hours prior and Toots’s was already in the low range.  The Dr. recommended I use antivenin which I found out is costly, over $500 for a pet and around $1,500 for a human.  The closest antivenin was in the next county so I drove to get it.  By this time Toots’s swelling had spread to the whole side of his left face and his neck, and he was beginning to whine in discomfort.

The Dr. began administering the antivenin in an IV when I returned, about seven hours after the bite occurred.  The antivenin is effective as long as it is administered in the first 48 hours.  Seven hours, by the vets account, was a very fast response.  Toots then stayed overnight.  By the next morning Toots’s swelling had subsided considerably and I picked him up and took him to his regular vet for her input.  By Monday afternoon we went for a walk and almost all of his swelling was gone.

Phew.

He’s curled up next to me now- he’s been sleeping a bit more than usual the past two days.  He looks like a seahorse with his head tucked down in his curled body.

He’s a champ.

March 23rd, 2010 | filed in Musings, Uncategorized
| no comments »