Snakebite

Always use a stick at least three feet in length to poke at a copperhead. 21 inches isn’t enough.

So it bit me on the finger and the usual stuff happened. Massive swelling that peaked at four days reaching through the upper back muscles and part of my neck. First night was sweats and chills with a really awesome puke thrown in. Two weeks later I’m back up to speed driving tee-posts and weeding like nothing happened. Have a knuckle that is kinda gnarly and hard but it blends in well with all the other minor damages done to my hands over the years.

So I’m digging all over the internet and story after story it’s the same thing – people crippled for weeks and months over a copperhead bite. Up to speed in a couple of weeks is unheard of, and all I can attribute it to is the power of Snake Oil. That’s MMS, or chlorine dioxide – go pop in to the Genesis 2 Church of the Hey Man Wow and wade though the reverend archbishop Jim’s attempt at written communication or just buy some sodium chlorite, make a 28% solution and add one drop of that to 5 drops of vinegar in a tightly covered jar, wait three minutes and there ya go. Immediately after the bite I took a 15 drop dose and another 15 drop dose an hour later. Soaked the wound in another 15 drop dose added to a pint of water.

About 4 days into the deal I saw red lines from above the wound at the top of my hand and thought gangrene so I got some dog antibiotics and ate them for a few days. Stopped when it became obvious that the red stuff was just a blown out vein from the swelling. Ate some yoghurt to replace the friendly gut bacteria and like I said, a couple of weeks later the bite is just an afterthought. Figured I better post about it before I forget about it completely.