First ER Visit

Thursday night, we kicked off our 4th of July weekend by taking Luke to the Longview Regional Medical Center Emergency Room. Our friends, Matt and Valerie Gunter and their girls, stopped by to visit and eat supper with us on their way to Matt's parent's house. Matt, Kevin, and the children were outside playing. Around 7 pm, Eli and the girls came in the house and Luke stayed outside with Kevin and Matt. Eli, Claire, and Kate hadn't been in the house but a couple of minutes when Kevin brought Luke in crying. Kevin told me to look at his foot. I saw two swollen puncture wounds about an 3/4 to 1 inch apart. I knew immediately what it was -- SNAKE BITE!

Earlier that morning, while Kevin was having his quiet time out at the shop, he killed a 2 1/2 cottonmouth snake. He has seen rat snakes out there but this was the first poisonous snake that he had seen. We have been educating the boys on what to do if they saw a snake while they were playing outside. They both knew what to do. But Luke didn't see this one. He was out by the shop with Kevin and Matt. The grass out by the shop had not been mowed yet so it was thick and high. We think he stepped on it without even knowing. He just started screaming and saying his foot stung. Kevin took off his rubber boots and saw the puncture wounds but didn't want to believe it was a snake bite. But when it started swelling like wheels, he knew it was highly probable it was a snake bite.

Matt and Valerie stayed with Eli and Seth while we rushed Luke to the hospital. Luke was calm and pretty quiet on the way to the hospital. He was alert and aware of his surroundings because he made comments about the blue gorilla at the used car dealership. He also told us when we got to the hospital that he did not want to lay in a bed. He remembered me in the bed at that hospital. His foot was still swollen and was red when we arrived at the ER. Around 8 pm we saw the doctor. He examined him and said that it looked like a snake could have bitten him but he didn't think that he had been envenomed if he had been bitten by a snake because he would have had unbearable pain. He went ahead and ordered blood work to check for DIC and gave him tylenol with codeine. They also observed him for a couple of hours. The blood work was fine and he never showed any signs of being envenomed.

On the way to the hospital, we called our family and church family had them to start praying for Luke. Some of our friends from our Bible Fellowship group to come to the hospital to be with us. We are so thankful and blessed to have such loving and caring family and friends. Kevin and I believe that their prayers were the reason Luke faired so well with this accident.

Kevin educated me on the differences in poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes during our wait. There are four poisonous snakes in the United States - Rattlesnake, Water Moccasin (cottonmouth) , Copperhead, and Coral. A poisonous snake bite will leave two puncture wounds from the fangs which inject the venom. Non-poisonous snakebites leave teethmarks but no fang marks. Also the bite itself can cause just as many problems as venom due the nasty snake's mouth. Kevin also reread a journal article that he got sometime ago on snakebites. The article said that 25% of the time, poisonous snakes do not inject venom when they bite. Also, the puncture wounds on Luke's foot were pretty far apart, which meant that it was a pretty big snake. Big snakes also do not have as much venom in their bites as small snakes.

If you saw Luke today, you would never know anything had happen. His foot isn't swollen and the bite now looks like a two small scabs. I tried to take a picture of his foot on Friday but I couldn't get a good picture and he was ready to go and play. It is only by God's grace and healing that Luke didn't have any major problems from the snake bite. We praise God that Luke's speedy and complete recovery! We are also very thankful that Matt and Valerie Gunter were here to take care of our other boys. It is so awesome how the Lord takes care of little details before we know we need them.

Luke's friends, Brooke and Jack Tanner, came to the hospital and brought him a
Spiderman coloring book and a giant lollipop. The coloring book made our wait not seem so long.

Luke is always a clown but the codeine added fuel to this fire.
Here he has the cold pack that we put on him at the house on his head.
And no he isn't naked, you just can not see his diaper.
(Yes, he is nearly three and still in diapers.)

Before we left the hospital, a nurse put ointment on his foot and bandaged it up.
Luke told Eli Friday morning that he was like Curious George.

This is the picture Luke was referring to from the book
"Curious George Takes a Job" by H. A. Rey