Peaches was our little bundle of fluff but then she bared her teeth. From Karen Battye, 52
Stepping inside the front door, I kicked off my shoes.
‘Hello, I’m back!’
I called out.
It was a Saturday night and I’d just been to a gig in town.
‘I’m in here,’ my grown-up daughter Hannah called back, and I followed her voice to the living room. There, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing with her guinea pig Peaches.
Hannah was obsessed with her guinea pigs. They lived at mine, so she’d come over often.
She had four in total, and Peaches was my favourite. She was beige with a gingery stripe, almost like a peach colour.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ I said, as I sat down and petted her.
She made a little appreciative noise.
Then Hannah reached into the crate and lifted out Pavlo, her male guinea pig. She’d been trying to mate him with Peaches and, usually, they got on OK.
But as Pavlo was set down, Peaches started squeaking and lunged towards him.
Without thinking, I put my left hand out to stop her, but Peaches was ready for battle.
Pain ripped through me as I looked down.
‘Arghh, get her off!’ I shrieked.
Peaches and her needle-like teeth were clamped around my middle finger.
She looked as shocked as I was, but she was locked on.
Hannah slowly prised her off as I looked away, then guided me to the kitchen sink.
‘Run your hand under water,’ she said. ‘It’s really bleeding, Mum, does it hurt?’
I looked down as the sink ran red. The wound was deep, but the pain was easing slightly.
‘I think it’s all right,’ I replied.
However, 10 minutes later, my hand was swollen and throbbing with pain.
‘You should go to A&E, Mum,’ Hannah said.
'Arghh, get her off!'
‘If I go to A&E now, I’ll be waiting for hours,’ I told her. ‘I’ll go in the morning.’
But I barely slept all night due to the pain. And when I held my hand out in the morning, I gasped.
It was treble the size!
‘Right, no arguments, I’m taking you to A&E,’ my son-in-law Richard told me.
At the hospital, I was quickly seen by a nurse, who took one look at my hand and nodded.
‘It’s infected,’ she said. ‘How did you do it?’
‘It was our guinea pig,’ I replied, tears trickling down
my face.
Her eyebrows raised.
I was taken to see a doctor, and explained again what had happened.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve come across dog and cat bites, even squirrel bites. But never a guinea pig bite.’
I gave a weak smile as my ballooned hand throbbed.
I was put on a drip, given painkillers and then sent for
an X-ray.
The doctor informed me I had a bacterial infection, and I was taken to a clinic for treatment.
I made small talk with the other patients in the waiting room and asked, ‘What happened to you, then?’
‘Nail gun,’ a man said, holding up his little finger with a nail sticking out of it.
I winced.
Opposite me, a couple explained they had both been bitten by their dogs.
‘So what about you?’ they asked.
I hesitated.
‘Erm,’ I said, ‘my guinea pig bit me.’
'My guinea pig bit me'
‘Your guinea pig?’ they echoed incredulously, looking at my huge hand.
A few hours later, the consultant came over.
‘You need an operation to remove the bacteria from the bite,’ he said. ‘You’re only the second patient I’ve ever seen with a guinea pig bite.’
I was treated like a celebrity, and everybody wanted to come over and hear the story.
But I still felt groggy and soon, I was in a hospital bed.
The next morning, I was wheeled down to theatre and my arm was numbed with anaesthetic.
I was awake throughout the operation, but I didn’t dare look until it was over.
Thankfully, it was bandaged up by then, and I had a sling to keep elevated.
Afterwards, I was taken back to a ward to rest, but I still needed one more operation.
All this over that one bite from Peaches!
Thankfully, the second operation went without a hitch.
‘You’re free to go,’ a nurse told me when I woke the following morning.
Before I left to go back home to Dewsbury, West Yorkshire,
I headed down to the hospital shop in search of a card for the staff, since they had all been so lovely and kind.
Scanning the shelf, my eyes widened and I laughed.
What are the chances? I thought, as I took a card with two guinea pigs on it to the till.
Now, my hand has healed, but it’s still not back to normal.
My middle finger is stiff and bent still, and I’m not able to straighten it properly.
But who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t had those operations?
As for the guinea pigs, I prefer to keep my distance from them now.
They’re such lovely little bundles of fluff, but they have still got sharp teeth.
I know Peaches didn’t mean to do it but once bitten, twice shy.