Naughty Snake

It was a Thursday afternoon, the kids were home from school, had eaten afternoon tea and I had even already made their lunches for the next day.  I decided we should would walk over and have a look at the new chicken coop that was patiently waiting for our chickens.  As we walked past a piece of tin on the ground I reminded the girls to never lift up a piece of tin by themselves to which they said "because their might be a snake". Proud of their growing snake awareness we kept walking toward the chicken coop (Missy and I, hand in hand) when Missy screamed, "SNAKE!" I looked down and saw it around my ankles and jumped in the air and it slithered off very quickly into the safety of the long grass.  Heart beating very heavy I tried to calm the girls and said, "its ok, its ok, no one got bitten".  Then I heard the words that I never wanted to hear. Little Missy through her tears said, "Yes, I did mummy, it bit me on the foot".  I looked down and saw the bite marks and blood droplets.  Now in total inward freakout mode but outwardly I'm totally calm and know exactly what to do in this situation, so as to not scare the children mode, I scooped up Missy and brought her inside and tied her foot up with a tea towel, while I went outside (we don't have phone reception inside the shed) to ring the ambulance. I had also told the two older kids to run over and get the neighbours who arrived within seconds on their quad bike carrying a massive first aid kit.  I had been fumbling with a pressure bandage while still on the phone when Katie (neighbour) arrived so she took to bandaging Missy's foot and all the way up to her hip, as per the instructions given over the phone.  It seemed like forever waiting for the ambulance to show up and during that time my biggest concern was that she would start deteriorating right in front of me.  She was so amazingly brave and really only got upset a few times- one of which was actually getting in the ambulance to go to the hospital.

It's almost too sad to look at her little face..

I had barely any battery left on my phone, but quickly made the necessary calls and before long, Kristian was on his way home, and my mum and dad were also on their way up to look after the other kids who had gone with the neighbours.  Watching her in the ambulance was so sad and not knowing what was awaiting us was awful but as we were arriving at the hospital, which was another 25 minutes, the paramedic said to me that it was a pretty good sign that she wasn't already showing signs of deterioration.  Once we were in the E.R they were straight to taking swabs, and putting in a canula and again Missy was so brave, albeit a little apprehensive about such a big needle.  They took her bloods and we just had to wait for the results to see whether they could detect any venom or not.  The whole time she was hooked up to all the monitors in case anything in her condition changed.  Thankfully she remained stable throughout the whole process.  Her bloods came back clear of any venom but we were told that her muscle...something..(can't remember the medical term) was elevated which can be a sign of something wrong, so we now had to be in for a little longer than planned as they needed to take blood every few hours and make sure those levels were coming down. Given she was stable, I made the hard decision to go back home to relieve my parents who needed to get up for work the next day and because Alaska still feeds in the night.  Kristian would stay overnight with our baby, and on some level I'm pretty sure Missy thought that was great. I left, torn between staying and needing to be at home, exhausted and drained but confident in the doctors reassurance that she would be ok. Not long after arriving home I got the news from Kristian that more blood results had come through and that muscle thing they were watching was coming down! A wave of relief washed over me.  Kristian and Missy arrived home at around 7am the next morning and I hugged her so tight, feeling very thankful to God, that she was totally fine but also feeling very sombre that it could have been very different.
It was an absolutely awful thing to happen and now we are a lot more cautious and on the look out when outside.  Missy is great and once home from hospital, loved all the attention, including getting into the local paper and the chocolate treat the next morning after dropping her sisters at school.

Eliza xx

Took it to school to show her teachers.

Still smiling.

All strapped in for her ambulance ride.