So last Saturday night, as many of you know, I almost lost Marcel due to his choking on a chew. Well....last night, the
now dreaded Saturday night...I ended up in the ER with my hubby, Tony, from 3am-12:30pm.
Scorpions are just a fact of life here in Arizona, but we've never actually had an issue with them. We have only found a few in the house, and they are usually dead. I had just turned out the lights last night at 10:15, when I heard Tony saying really loud from the other room "Honey, HONEY!". And then he came in the bedroom limping, saying he thought he'd just been stung on the foot by a scorpion.
We washed his foot, elevated it, got an ice pack, Benadryl etc - and then I went to find the scorpio in the den...but never did find it
.
Meanwhile, Tony was just in excruciating pain, we couldn't believe it! He was getting really tingly too, so eventually I called poison control to see what we should do, and they said so far - this sounded normal. By 2am though, he had no feeling in his legs, the tingling/numbness was going all over, his lips were numb, said his swallowing felt weird, he was pale/gray, in severe pain, and had SEVERE nystagmus (his eyeballs were rapidly moving back and forth). I had talked to poison control twice during this time and they said the nystagmus could happen, but that none of this was probably life threatening. Probably?
We decided to go the ER, he just did not look right. But he couldn't walk - he had no feeling in his legs whatsoever. He couldn't even put weight on them, it was so scary. So we put him on a blanket and I dragged him...and he also partially dragged himself w/ his arms (I know, OMG!)...and out to the garage and I don't know how we hauled him up into the car, but we did.
Got to ER about 3am and his lips were almost blue, he looked just horrible. They gurneyed him in, and I parked. Over the next hours, they gave him 3 IV shots of morphine to help manage pain, and he was sort of in/out of sleeping eventually. The toxicologist didn't give the anti-venom bc Tony was already 5hrs into the bite, so we just waited. The pain was managed, but the numbness was really slow in going away - which the toxicologist said was normal. His face color came back around 6-7am.
They wouldn't let him leave the ER unless he could stand, and walk a few steps. Before noon, he finally had enough sensation to walk a little bit, but he has to brace himself and is very wobbly. The toxicologist said he had a severe reaction (but did not call it allergic) and that the neurotoxin released by the scorpio was what caused all of these symptoms. He said that the numbness/tingling can take up to a month to clear in some severe cases!
Interestingly, the toxicologist said this doesn't mean he would react the exact same way if he was bitten again. But he said, if he was bitten again - and if the symptoms were heading this way - Tony should go to the ER right away, and then they'd give him the anti-venom if it was early in the bite.
My poor hubs...I can't believe what he went through last night, I've never seen a toxic reaction occur and I can't believe how painful it was
. All of that from a
tiny little bug.
So, what are my plans for next Saturday night, you ask? Um, yeah, everyone is being locked inside a sealed, padded room with nothing but water
.