This BITE CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER (story time)

Hey YouTube, how's it going Ben, oh man, 20 here tonight and tonight I'll tell you another

story

. I already did a

story

about my worst snake

bite

, but

this

is actually the worst

bite

I've ever had. I've been working with animals or reptiles or anything like that, so I've always thought for the last seven eight years that I've been thinking very deeply about making an actual documentary-style film about

this

because it's actually quite interesting, but let's move on. Let's go ahead and get into it, so I was walking around looking for rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes are one of my favorite snakes in the world.

I acquired this passion since I was about 12 years old. I was actually in the Sonoran Desert for about two hours outside. from Phoenix when I encountered my first rattlesnake and since then I've been a little obsessed so I came home from that trip and as a native we had the timber rattlesnake so my mission was to find a snake of forest rattlesnake, now let's fast. -From now on, I was probably about 22 or 23 years old. I was at an active den site looking for timber rattlesnakes just to get some interesting photographs and get some video footage, anything I could get without disturbing the animal and I was actually walking down a nice little ravine kind of slithered a little bit, slithered a little bit, you know, I walked a little bit a little bit of the above and actually came across the beautiful Copperhead, a nice little viper, took some good photos of him inside the rough edge.

I actually have a good photo of the general area, so it's a little difficult to see the snake. In fact, I'll post it on my Instagram so you can go and try to find it, but other than all that, it all felt like home. True, I didn't think anything bad had happened. I cleaned up after being in the woods like you would and felt great about two weeks later. I know that a long

time

after the bite, uh, about two weeks later, my legs started to feel very. It was tingling and I didn't know what was happening.

The only thing I knew was that it was very annoying to wear pants. I would go crazy. It was painful. It was irritating. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was a bit strange, I worried too much about it, you know, I've never liked warm pants, anyway, I always work in shorts, so who cares, you know well, I went about my daily business and about a week Then my ankles started to hurt a lot. bad as the joints, it was almost like arthritis, but it was very painful in both ankles. I found out, so I went to the doctor.

I don't know what's going on, but my ankles hurt so much and they're like. Well, that's weird, probably arthritis. So you're saying that a 22 year old man has arthritis in both ankles out of nowhere and they say, yeah, that's what we're saying mm-hmm, it doesn't sound very Logical, but whatever you know, I'm not the doctor. I moved on and left the doctor's office at this point. It's getting very difficult to stay on my feet. My ankles are killing good. In about a week, my knees started moving and when I say "they go like." I would stand up straight and my knees would give way, they would bend, I would fall.

This worried me a lot because I am slowly but surely losing the ability to walk. At this point I had to make the decision that some of the higher end reptiles some of the things that required a lot of care and were very difficult to handle I had to get rid of them because I couldn't handle them anymore I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. I go to more and more doctors. they're saying it's arthritis they're saying saying all kinds of things at this point my legs are starting to become very vascular. I have a lot of veins appearing in my legs.

I'm not exactly sure why I just don't know. What's going on? I wasn't exercising, so why are all these veins sticking out of my legs? It doesn't make sense, so I went to one of the larger hospitals in the area to see what they said. They weren't sure if they had all of them. The doctors there were all looking at me trying to figure out what was going on, checking my reflexes, checking my nerves, they said yes, you have major nerve damage in your lower legs, like you don't feel anything. I'm like this. I'm feeling a lot of pain, but not in terms of the skin, I didn't feel anything.

This happens. I'm trying to go to work, but it's almost impossible for me to even maintain my average work schedule that I would go to. A couple of hours in and I realized I couldn't stand long enough to complete my work. I would have to go home, so I called every other day because I couldn't get up. It was starting to reach my hips. I could feel it. I knew it was reaching my hips and lower back and I'm getting really nervous now, it was bad enough that I went uptown to my local town and went to the convenience store to buy a soda or a chocolate bar or whatever I felt like.

Shit I had to eat, it's clear, I know a good diet, right? And my mom went there later that night or whatever, and this lady working on her psyche is your son, okay, you know, we know he's your son and he looks dead. Like he looks really bad, he's pale, he's not moving, it's worth it, mom, I don't know, you know, I don't know what's wrong with them anyway, after all that, I went to work another day and a good friend of mine named Travis yeah I had to describe him, I would say he's a country guy, a great guy, big, old, with a ZZ Top beard, just a good guy, you know, a great guy, it's like you've been tested for spotted fever of the Rocky Mountains.

I'm kind of like Rocky Mountain spotted fever, what is that? he's like Lyme disease, you get it from a tick, you think I know how often you're outside and he says those kinds of sounds could be what you have, they can affect the nervous system and everything else doesn't. I know exactly how it works, but I know it's what I have. I haven't been tested for that, so I went back to the doctor and said, Hey, I know you think I have arthritis and you're saying that. I have no pain even though I can't walk because of the pain.

What about Rocky Mountain spotted fever? Could you test me for that and they said yes we can test you for that and Lyme disease so I got tested. They both came back positive, I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, so they gave me a very basic medication in about two weeks. I was almost back to normal and when I say I could almost stand it, my joints didn't hurt as much anymore. My skin irritation was still there, the vascularity in my leg was still there, but I could walk and that was a big plus, but overall, to this day it drives me crazy to wear pants, so a lot of people will see me in subarctic conditions. with snow. on my chest wearing shorts and they're like you're crazy and I'm like I can't feel my legs and what I feel hurts, call me crazy, call me whatever, but I dress to be comfortable, not to show you off.

I'm not really trying to look that cool. I'm just using what works. I know it's a little crazy to think about, I've handled all these poisonous snakes and the thing that almost killed me, if they hadn't found it. You killed me it was a tick, just think about it, a tick almost killed me. You know, the crazy thing is that I was looking for the rattlesnake, which is a rattlesnake that is persecuted throughout much of its range. People seem to be really terrified of this snake. although it is very solitary and doesn't come into contact with people very often when it does, the snake tends to suffer, but if he had found the rattlesnake, if the cliff he was on was covered in more rat snakes, actually there was a study done by the University of Maryland that indicated that within the feeding cycle of a rattlesnake during the summer, and I don't send mail, I think the study was done that they can eat between 2,500 and 4,500 ticks in any given season. , so these snakes, of course, wheat, the squirrels will eat the mice, they will eat any furry critters that are running around and they will eat them and they will also ingest the ticks, that doesn't make the snake sick, but it definitely helps us , so if the block had been more populated, there's a good chance it would never have contracted this.

I would not have the general long term side effects of this horrible disease and I know that many people in the United States are infected with Lions disease and that is a This horrible disease also has many side effects. You know, a lot of people ask why you love snakes so much. Why are you so obsessed with snakes, especially poisonous ones? It just doesn't make sense and I seriously think I owe my

life

to the snakes, you know that

time

I didn't save myself, but how many other times: five minutes in the forest that if it weren't for the snakes, if it weren't for the snakes of rattlesnake that the ticks ate, perhaps he had contracted Blinds disease. or Rocky Mountain spotted fever a long time ago and I never found out what it was and I would have died, so my opinion I owe my

life

to snakes.

If you like snakes, subscribe to the channel. Normally we will have more content about snakes. I'll have something right here on the table that you can take a look at. I know that today you have had to suffer through my face. Hopefully, you could see some salt at the bottom. It piqued your interest instead of just looking at me, but I appreciate you making sure to show this impression, show this video to your friends and have a unique flight.