VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A spider bite may be nothing to blink at, but for one North Carolina man, it led to a much more serious diagnosis that gave him only days to live. Now, he says he’s thankful for the string of events that have brought him to remission.
Bobby Sipka, 62, of Moyock, said it started with a Brown Recluse spider bite on his elbow earlier this year.
“I was on a tractor cutting a field in the back of our property. That’s where, I’m assuming, I got bit,” Sipka said.
Then, he slipped on a boat ramp.
“Then a few days later, my calf started hurting from when I had blown out my Achilles tendon about 20 years ago,” he explained to NewsNation affiliate WAVY.
But something was off. The bite mark and the bruises weren’t going away, and wounds weren’t healing. After trying antibiotics with no luck, officials transferred Sipka to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
Blood work showed Sipka had acute leukemia. Doctors estimated he had between seven and 15 days to live.
“[It] just floored me! … It brought on a lot of emotions,” Sipka exclaimed.
He says that at times, he wanted to give up, but the hospital staff wouldn’t let him.
“When I was down and just didn’t think it was worth it, they’d hold my hand and talk to me, and it was just amazing. They’re special people here,” Sipka added.
The bond among them grew. One nurse even took the time to sing “Amazing Grace” with his niece at his bedside.
“And so, it was in that moment of singing that we felt God just reassuring us that he was going to be OK,” Sipka’s niece, Ashleigh Shuffler, said.
Nearly 50 days later, on his last day in the hospital, Sipka was wheeled out of the facility. And to his surprise, all the nurses, whom he now considers his friends, were gathered outside. They also had him ring the bell.
While Sipka is in remission, he says the friendships he’s forged are going strong.
“They did so much that they didn’t have to do. It wasn’t part of their job to comfort me and stuff. They were here to take care of me medically, but they took care of me emotionally, too. And that’s something I just, like I told them when I left, I don’t know how to say thank you for that. Because it meant so much to me to know that they would do that for me,” Sipka said.
Sipka is now taking monthly shots and daily chemo pills. He’ll visit Duke University in January for a bone marrow transplant consultation.
His family, meanwhile, wants to stress the importance of donating blood and platelets because they saw firsthand the great need for both.