On May 28, Britagne Miller from Goddard, Kansas, was sitting by the campfire at Cheney State Park with her husband Jake and their four children when numerous spiders crawled on her leg and body, leaving bite marks.
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At the time, she did not give it much importance. Four days later, one of the bites on her calf swelled significantly, and a burning, stabbing pain spread down to her foot. On June 4, she was admitted to Wesley hospital in Wichita.
Surgery and fight for life
Doctors determined that B. Miller had developed a hematoma and urgent surgery was necessary. Nearly 300 ml of blood clots were removed from her calf, and a drain was inserted to help the wound heal. What was supposed to be a simple recovery process quickly became critical. During a previous pregnancy, B. Miller was diagnosed with two blood clotting disorders; additionally, she had liver damage and multiple allergies to food and medications. Her body struggled to cope with the condition, and in the following days, she often spoke incoherently. Doctors suspected she was developing end-stage liver failure and after two weeks recommended hospice care.
“They gave me from three days to a month to live, so it was scary,” B. Miller told the local KAKE publication. She received blood transfusions, antibiotics, and many other treatments to stabilize her condition.
Second crisis
Five days into recovery, the surgical wound became infected with staphylococcus and gram-negative bacteria, causing tissue necrosis. Doctors performed two emergency procedures and prescribed additional antibiotics. B. Miller said she reached a point where she wanted to give up, but the thought of her children kept her going.
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While B. Miller fought for her life, her husband stayed by her side and took care of the children. Eventually, his employer fired him because he did not meet the work schedule requirements. “There was never a question about where I needed to be, but losing income and insurance made our financial situation difficult,” he said. B. Miller’s mother flew in from Utah to help care for the children.
Currently, the family is raising funds on the “GoFundMe” platform to cover ongoing medical expenses, weekly specialist visits, transportation, utilities, and other household bills. It is hoped that in the future B. Miller will be able to return home, but she will require continuous home nursing care and physical therapy. For now, she cannot be placed on the liver transplant waiting list because her blood clotting parameters need to stabilize enough for her to withstand the surgery – a process that will likely take several months.
The species of spider that bit B. Miller has not been definitively identified, but experts suspect the brown recluse, as it is one of two venomous spiders in Kansas besides the black widow. The brown recluse prefers dark places such as under logs, piles of stones, and inside unused shoes and boxes. It usually bites when it feels trapped between skin and clothing.
Dr. Raymold Cloyd, a horticultural entomologist at Kansas State University, advised everyone camping or handling long-stored boxes to wear gloves and shake out shoes before putting them on. Although a brown recluse bite is usually tolerable for healthy adults, it can have serious consequences for people with pre-existing health conditions, as in B. Miller’s case.
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