Val Recovers from Snake Bite

Val Matthews, who is my longest serving employee having worked for me for nearly 20 years, is still recovering from a snake bite which occurred on the 29th April this year.

Val lives on the family cane farm situated at Mt Julian, near Proserpine with her husband Bill.

It was a Sunday afternoon when Val was taking a walk along a headland with sugar cane situated on one side and a cow paddock on the other. Val says that there was a cow running along near where she was walking and whilst she was looking at this cow she felt a sharp pain just below her knee. When she looked down, Val saw a sizeable brown snake slithering away. She immediately knew that she had been bitten.

Val remained calm and luckily had her mobile phone with her. She went to call Bill but he was at the Proserpine Dam with their son and family and was out of range. A quick phone call was made to neighbour’s Col and Mandy Ayers who immediately came to Val’s aid. An ambulance was called and Val was taken to the Proserpine Hospital and later flown to the Mackay Base Hospital.

At first, it seemed that the bite was not going to be as serious as initially feared. However, early in the morning on the day after the bite when the pressure bandage was released that is when Val started to suffer quite a severe reaction. What seems to have happened is that when the pressure bandage was removed toxins were released into Val’s body. This immediately caused problems and Val’s health deteriorated rapidly. A shot of anti-venom was given to Val and her well being remained in the balance for some time while she stayed in intensive care. The combination of the venom and the anti-venom caused Val’s kidneys to fail. This resulted in a need for dialysis for a period of 2 weeks after the bite. It was necessary for Val to stay in
hospital for a total of 3 weeks before returning home to deal with the difficult and slow recovery that followed.

Because of the damage incurred to Val’s kidneys it has meant that the chemical waste molecule Creatinine built up in her body. One of the main functions of your kidneys is to filter out Creatinine which is a waste product generated from muscle metabolism. As such, high levels of Creatinine is an indicator of possible malfunction or failure of the kidneys. Val’s Creatinine levels continue to improve and it is hoped that they will return to
normal in the coming months.

An important part of Val’s recovery was a 5 week overseas trip to Europe and Val says that her doctor has said that perhaps she should go on another holiday as it seemed to dramatically improve her condition. As such Val is now giving close and careful consideration to her next overseas trip, given how important it seems that this is to her recovery!

I would like to acknowledge Val’s long service and the fact that even when she was so ill, she was concerned about work and was eager to make sure that things were being looked after properly in her absence. I would also like to make special mention of the text message that Val’s husband Bill sent to me at around the time that Val’s condition deteriorated. It said “Andrew, Val won’t make work today, got bitten by a brown snake yesterday”. I suspect that Bill’s text understated the seriousness of what was happening but it does show that even when Val was lying in intensive care in hospital that she
was worried about missing a day of work. It has been wonderful to see Val’s steady improvement and myself and all of the Directors at Macrossan & Amiet wish Val all the best in her continued recovery.

Andrew Telford
Director
Cannonvale