Posted on 05/21/2010 12:52:56 PM PDT by Willie Green
PAULDING COUNTY, Ga. -- A Paulding County woman is recovering from major surgery after being bitten by a brown recluse spider at her home.
“I would have never known in a million years that a spider could ever do this much damage,” said Victoria Franklin.
Franklin was at WellStar Windy Hill Hospital Friday morning, recovering from an April mastectomy.
“I didn’t flip out over that. I was glad to be alive,” she said of her surgery.
She found out she lost her left breast when the hospital staff told her after she woke up from an 11-day coma.
“She said, ‘You’re in ICU and you’ve lost your breast from a spider bite.’ I said, ‘What?!,’” said Franklin.
Doctors told her she’d been bitten by a brown recluse spider. Franklin said she first noticed lumps on her breast on Easter Sunday but didn’t think much of it. As the days progressed, she began to feel much worse. By Friday, she couldn’t take the pain anymore.
“My breast had turned black and it got so big, I couldn’t even fit it in my bra,” said Franklin. “I woke up in excruciating pain and the smell was so strong I couldn’t do anything but call my friend and say, ‘Please come get me,’” said Franklin.
She got to the emergency room but the gangrene had already set it and the breast and muscle had to be removed.
Doctors identified the brown recluse spider as the culprit.
Franklin will undergo breast reconstructive surgery. She will also have to learn to walk again.
She urged others to head to the doctor at the first sign of a bite instead of waiting like she did.
Those are no joke. A bite from one of those put me in the hospital for a week. That was the sickest I ever was in my life.
brown recluse.... they make your flesh sort of melt
The brown recluse spider is one bad dude. I know two people who have had bites, one almost lost his foot, the other was sick for weeks with a nasty bite / sore on his abdomen.
The Brown Recluse, and the Chilean Recluse Spiders are probably the nastiest insects that have ever crawled the face of the Earth. The vileness is magnified by the fact that these are tiny, ubiquitous creatures and spread nearly all over the southern United States.
I’m from Australia, and we do have nasty creatures here, but barely any of them terrify me as much as the Brown Recluse spider. A simple Google image search of their bites will let you know what I mean. Make sure to not be ingesting food while viewing them.
When I lived in Hiram, Ga in Paulding I had an infestation of black widow spiders. I bug bombed the house and took a vacation at the same time, no more spiders.
I had one nail me right on the elbow...fortunately there’s pretty thick skin and not a lot of muscle tissue there to be damaged. Nevertheless, I looked like Popeye for a couple weeks with a hugely swollen forearm.
Those are bad little guys. Hubby was bit on his arm and was in pain for the longest. It left a hole in his muscle and a scar.
I had a hobo spider bite my forehead. It swelled like a baseball and turned all sorts of colors.
The doctors had nothing to do about it. Luckily, it subsided after about a month.
I’m suprized she even called a friend.
I really am. I’m sorry for her and all that. But when did she think she ought to get medical attention?
After she died? Too late.
Is the severity based on people not taking it serious/not getting treatment right away, or is it a case of these spiders are just that bad?
They are just that bad.
I wonder if she knew that she’d been bitten by a spider, and IF she did know, was she aware that it was a brown recluse spider and that the bite could be life threatening?
11-day coma...dang
Yeah I’ve heard hobo spider bites are nearly as bad as the recluse ones.
A good friend was bitten on the hand by a brown recluse spider. She very nearly lost her hand but thankfully the talented hand surgeons worked miracles. She lost, and will never regain, a lot of function in the hand.
This happened on the Upper Eastern Shore of Maryland. She was housecleaning her kitchen cabinets.
Now that is a serious bite. I had what I suspected to be a brown recluse bite that looked pretty nasty, but turned out to be a staph infection. Still was not fun and oozed stuff for a month or so, after having it lanced.
spiders are just that bad?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
They are that bad.
I know a guy that nearly lost his hand after getting bit by one of those things.
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