By Robbi Pounds
Guest Columnist
I had just buckled my horse’s halter when something hit me just above my boot.
Wasps were swarming me and my horse, and I had been anticipating a first sting, but this was the worst pain of my life, as sharp and hard as a horsewhip and as white hot as a live wire. I screamed out an expletive, and my horse and I took
off down the hill toward
the pasture gate, both of us shaking our heads at the wasps.
Was this a murder hornet sting? Was I allergic? What was going on?
A few yards down the hill, the real pain struck. My calf was lava hot, like it was cooking from the inside. The pain bloomed like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.
There was no ceiling to it. The pain just kept growing. This was stratospheric pain. By the time I threw the pasture gate open and we turned up the hill toward the barn, I was wondering why the human body is even capable of feeling such pain. What is the point?
I would call the pain unbearable, except that I bore it. All the pain I had felt in my life up to that point – dislocating a knee, falling off a horse, knocking out three teeth – all that now ranked a 1 on the pain scale, and this ranked a 10.
No one else was at the farm, and my car and phone were at the barn – which was at the top of the hill, at least two football fields away. We had to keep going. All I wanted was to get away from that pasture, away from whatever had happened to me.
As we started up the hill, I had already sweated through my clothes, and my vision was closing in. My heart beat like a hummingbird’s. I wrapped my hands in my horse’s mane to keep me upright. I told my horse, Percy Walker, to go – and he went. I held on and made my feet move.
More than anything, I felt like something had gotten me. I felt extremely gotten. Wasps? A zombie? A vampire? Something was changing me from the inside out, and it was moving faster than I could move.
By the time my horse dragged me to the barn, the pain had plateaued, and I was reasonably sure I was not going to die. My calf was bright pink. Several spots looked like possible stings.
I drove myself home, where I took antihistamines and anti-inflammatories, soaked in a hot bath, then went to bed. Aside from waking up every time the sheet touched my leg, I slept. I woke up the next morning feeling pretty normal.
Around 2 in the afternoon, I decided to wash my leg and apply antibiotic cream. My calf looked the same – bright pink – but when I touched it, the skin was hot. I dabbed on some cream, and that’s when I saw the two identical puncture wounds about an inch and a half apart.
That’s when I knew. I was snakebit. By a copperhead.
The ER monitored me for three hours, then set me free. A nurse joked that they should give out merit badges for snakebite, and I have to agree.
That snakebite gave me a whole new perspective on life. I know what pain is now. That pain reset my priorities and rewired my brain. Anything less than a copperhead bite does not really bother me. And every day without a snakebite is a good day.
Robbi Pounds lives in the eastern end of Cherokee County.