TYLER, Texas — A spider bite nearly cost a Texas woman her foot.
Suzan Chapman said she thinks she was bitten by a brown recluse spider when she went to her barn. A few hours later, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle, KLTV reported.
She said she’s been told that the bites themselves are painless.
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"One would expect it to be really awful, it wasn't, it was uncomfortable, it was a burn," Chapman told KLTV.
It wasn’t that big of a deal to Chapman since as she was being taken to surgery, she was more worried about a plumber coming to her home than the bite itself, but doctors were blunt when they explained the ramifications of not having surgery.
"They said, 'Well ma'am, would you like your water or your foot?'," Chapman told KLTV.
Chapman’s bite started out as a marble-sized black spot, but the venom ate away at her tissue. After surgery to remove the damage, she was left with a softball-sized hole on her leg nearly down to the bone.
After two surgeries, she still has about 9 months left to recover, but at this point will be able to keep her foot, KLTV reported.
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