I wrote recently about Sam's split lip and Sylvie's knocked out tooth. Those experiences, in such quick succession, really drained me. Turns out, I wasn't quite done yet with trauma for my little loved ones. I'll start out the story by employing some of the communications skills I learned in a recent training: By telling you up front that the trauma happened to Bodhi, and that it was awful, but that he's recovering well and is going to be fine.
Now for the story:
On Tuesday of this week, Bodhi and I snuck in a little walk up our neighborhood trail, called Nightbird Gulch. We walk this trail three times a week, around 3:20pm -- enough time for us to climb the trail and walk back down again by 4:00pm, when I relieve the sitter. Tuesday was no different from our regular routine, but Tuesday's walk ended with a tragedy.
Bodhi walks off-leash on the trail, and generally stays very close to me. As I was walking along the trail, just at the point when I was about to turn around and head back, with him immediately behind me, I heard the unmistakable rattle of a rattlesnake, just on the right side of the trail, in the brush. I walked quickly on and turned to grab Bodhi. He did not jump into the noise to check it out, but he turned his face towards it, to see what it was. I didn't have a chance to grab him. The snake snapped out and bit him without me even seeing it. Without a noise, Bodhi quickly continued towards me. I wasn't sure at that point, because I hadn't seen or heard anything besides the rattle, but I thought he had been bitten. I never saw the snake, but continued to hear its nasty rattle, and turned around immediately to start walking us both down the trail.
Bodhi started pawing at his face, and I could see a little blood on his snout. I prayed that he had just been grazed by the snake, but as we kept walking, more blood starting showing on his white fur, until I was sure that he'd been bitten for real.
One-third of the way down the trail, I realized that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket when I was running away from the snake. I had to tell Bodhi to wait for me while I ran back up the trail to retrieve it. I was terrified and crying by this point, and worried that he might be near death by the time I returned to him. However, I got the dumb phone, ran back to him, and he was waiting for me at the exact spot where I left him, and we walked down the trail (about 15 minutes) together.
Unbelievably, when we arrived at the bottom of the trail, an animal control car was patrolling the trailhead. I waved the woman down, and she ended up taking Bodhi to the vet while I waited for Caitlyn to show up with the kids. We went to a vet about 15 minutes away because they were the closest animal hospital with antivenin.
By the time we got him to the vet, his face and neck were getting relatively swollen, and he was extremely lethargic. I talked with the vet and Kyle arrived soon after, since the animal hospital is right near Lutheran Hospital, where he happened to be working that day.
Snake venom apparently causes severe swelling and changes the composition or behavior of an animal's blood. All of the platelets, which are usually free-flowing, cling to the sides of vessels when venom is present. So when envenomated blood is tested, the platelet count is zero, and the blood acts as if it has no platelets -- the victim may not stop bleeding if he has a wound. This was the case for Bodhi, and we found out that he'd have to spend the night at the hospital to receive IV fluids and be monitored throughout the night. The snake had bitten through his lip and into his tongue, so his tongue was swelling badly and we were worried about his airway. Over the course of the night, they would treat him with antivenin, which may or may not work to halt the effect of the venom.
I was so very sad that poor, sweet Bodhi had to go through all of this. Kyle visited him that night, and he was very swollen and drunk on pain meds. Luckily, we did not hear back from the vet during the night, which was a good sign. I felt terrible throughout the night, and continued replaying the experience in my head, over and over.
The next day, I found out that Bodhi had stabilized and would be able to come home in the afternoon. It turns out that, because we got him to the hospital so quickly, he didn't swell as much as he might have if many hours had passed, or if he never got the antivenin. We picked him up and he was moving very slowly, and his face and neck were very swollen and bruised. We nursed him back to health with rest, soft food, antibiotics and pain medication.
Today (Sunday) was the first day that he came along with us outside, to Kyle's cyclocross race at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. He only has a bit of swelling on the side of his face, and some shaved parts on his snout and legs, and he has recovered remarkably well. He has spirit back, and we are so grateful that he's OK.
We plan to take Bodhi to some training to learn how to act around/be afraid of rattlesnakes, and his bite has brought up some good safety conversations with the kids. I think he'll be just fine, though I'm hoping that he'll always remember the sound of that rattle and connect it to the event, so that he avoids snakes forever into the future. I've learned recently that snakes are out more during this time of year than any other time, because they're soaking up the last of the sun and eating what they can before they hibernate. I've spent a lot of time on the trails around here, and have never seen a snake. I may have been, on some level, in denial that they are so prevalent on the Front Range.
From what I can tell, Bodhi is the same old Bodhi, in terms of personality. He was very lucky to have gotten to the hospital so quickly, and we think that the antivenin helped him, because he doesn't have any physical impairments (dead tissue, etc) that can sometimes follow a bite like this. After the incident, I awent for a run early in the morning and jumped out of fear when I heard peoples' sprinklers turning on. I also saw a snake on the street while I was driving, and I wasn't sure whether it had been hit or not, and I admit that I swerved the car a little, in order to *run over* the snake. One might say that I'm the one who needs to work through some post-traumatic issues.
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