Port Charlotte mom recovering after losing part of arm to severe spider bite
By Jackie Guenther
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PORT CHARLOTTE, Florida (WBBH) — Nicole Kelly, a single mother of two from Port Charlotte, has been hospitalized for two weeks, recovering from a venomous spider bite and a COVID-19 diagnosis, which has left her unable to work and facing financial difficulties.
“It’s hard trying to make it through, especially mentally, because I’m away from my kids,” Kelly said. She expressed the difficulty of asking for help, saying, “I don’t ask for help, and it feels very foreign and very weird, but it’s crazy how one spider bite can lead to all of this.”
Kelly was bitten by a brown recluse spider on Sept. 3 while moving, leading to a serious condition that required immediate surgery. “They had to do a pretty invasive surgery. It was bad. They took out what they described as about two ice cream scoops full of tissue and flesh that had been eaten away or had started to deteriorate because of the venom. It was pretty serious,” Kelly said.
Joyce Fassbender, an entomologist and arachnologist at Florida Gulf Coast University, explained that a large amount of venom from a spider can cause serious health issues. “If you get a spider that injects a large amount of venom into the body, then you can actually have the formation of an ulcer that starts to break down and can sometimes work its way through the skin and into the muscle below,” Fassbender said.
Kelly shared the intense upkeep of the wound, “They have to clean it out twice a day. They make sure they give me some pain medication beforehand because it is painful. It’s probably going to take about 6 to 8 weeks to heal. It’s going to be a long ride,” she said.
Kelly is looking for all the help she can get to manage the hefty hospital bills and hopes to reunite with her children soon.
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