A ONCE-HEALTHY teenager has been left fighting for his life and unable to speak or walk after getting a seemingly harmless spider bite.
Noah Johnson, 16, was forced to get kidney dialysis when a horrifying infection and severe reaction left his organs failing.
Noah Johnson, 16, was left fighting for his life after getting a spider bite[/caption]
The bite left him with an infection that spread through his body (file photo)[/caption]
The teenager was working for his brother’s fencing company in June when he felt something crawl up his leg and bite him, his mom Brandy Johnson told People.
When he got home, Noah saw a bite mark on his rear end, but went out for the evening and spent the night at a friend’s house like normal.
The next morning, he came home and told his mom, “That bite really hurts.”
There aren’t any fatally poisonous spiders in Slater, Iowa, the Des Moines suburb where the Johnson family lives, so the mom told her son just to keep an eye on things.
A few days later, the bite had swelled up to the size of a silver dollar, and the two gruesome fang marks left it looking like a pig snout.
Noah was in so much pain that he couldn’t even sit down, and was eventually taken to urgent care for treatment.
Doctors told the family that the bite had gotten infected, which was normal, and gave him antibiotics as they monitored for MRSA – a difficult-to-treat bacteria.
However, Noah appeared to resist the treatment, and the infection worsened. At one point, he was experiencing oozing from the bite mark and other parts of his body.
Noah’s mom rushed him to the emergency room, but they just gave him more antibiotics.
He was also running a 103-degree fever, but doctors told him to go back home for two days before he could come back.
Three days later, Noah’s condition had reached critical levels. His fever was burning, and he was too weak to walk.
The teen was finally taken to the hospital and rushed into emergency surgery so that doctors could cut out three infected areas.
The morning after the surgery, Noah went into kidney failure and had to get dialysis.
His aunt, Chastity Schonhorst, said, “Every day they thought he might get a little better, he went back downhill.
“It was heartbreaking.”
DIFFICULT JOURNEY
Doctors performed a biopsy of Noah’s kidneys and determined that he had an allergic reaction to pain medicine that was given to him in a hospital.
The teen got a colonoscopy, and a small infection was found inside his intestines.
Noah went from powering through three-hour-long workouts with his baseball team to being completely unable to speak or walk.
What are the signs of a spider bite?
- Red, itchy rash, or raised area of skin (weals)
- Red, itchy, watery eyes
- Swelling of hands, feet, or face
- Abdominal pain, vomiting, or diarrhoea
- Difficulty in breathing
- Swelling of tongue and throat with puffiness around eyes
- Confusion and agitation
- Signs of shock leading to collapse and unresponsiveness.
He lost 35 pounds as he battled the infection with his loving mom at his side.
She described taking him outside to feel the sunlight and saying positive messages to him during his health scare.
After weeks of fighting, Noah’s kidneys finally started working on their own, and he was able to go home on July 21.
His mom said, “He’s doing much better, but will need weeks of physical therapy, medications, and many doctor’s visits.”
She hopes that Noah will recover quickly enough to go back to school in the fall.
