It’s been two rather chaotic days. Yesterday morning, my wife, Lena, was out walking the dog and took a path with rather high grass, where she met a viper. She never saw it, but she felt it’s sting. Now, when you are bitten by a viper it’s important to keep still to prevent the venom from spreading. Easy to say, if you’re not out in the woods without your mobile phone… and Lena didn’t at first realise that it was a snake that had bitten her.
She got a really bad reaction from the viper venom (and maybe it was one of this year’s extra venomous baby vipers – esping in Swedish). She called a friend who also has a summer house nearby (and happens to be a nurse) and they went to the local health care center (vårdcentralen) together with Malte, our youngest who didn’t want to be left alone in the house.
By the time they got there Lena’s blood preassure was extremely low, and her eye sight was nearly gone. They injected her with adrenaline which got her going again but gave her a tough panic reaction. Unfortunately, Malte was in the room at the time and took this pretty badly.
Since the blood pressure still was low, the sent Lena to one of the two hospitals in Västmanland. Not the nearest one either. It’s 81 kilometers away. Malte and our friend followed in the ambulanse. By the time they got there, Lena was really bad and her right foot very blue and more than twice it’s ordinary size. She was deamed be in too bad a shape and sent on to the intensive care ward in Västerås (another 42 kilometers away). This time Malte and our nuse friend was left behind thoght since Lena was now a priority 1 patient.
By the time I got there, she was full of hoses and instruments, had been injected with snake serum, more adrenalin, pain killers, foru liters of drip and was quite difficult to get through to. She dozed off now and then, but her blood pressure was stabalized and her heart beat and breathing (also through a hose) was good.
After a few hours I left her to go to look after Malte who was now at our friends’ house outside Norberg. Another friend came and picked me up. Thank god friends and the help they give!
Today Allis came up from Stockholm, and we went together to see her again. She was now moved out of intensive care and into a ward, where a physiotherapist from hell had made her try to stand on her very blue and swollen foot. This unfortunately made everything worse, and she got back on drip to keep her blood pressure up. More of her leg was now swollen, and she was in quite a lot of pain even though she was shot full of pain killers. Unfortunately, I don’t have too much hope we will get her home tomorrow either, even if I still hope so.