Well.. first... I'm ok.   In fact, the swelling is going down, though the area is quite sensitive.  I can type better than I could earlier...  so here's the scoop.

We had our Tube Steak and Volleyball Night at the chapel.  Things were just wrapping up at about 11:20pm when I went out to see how the kids were doing at finding Grace's shoes (constant problem ).  Davey and Barak told me they'd seen a copperhead snake just a few minutes before I got out there.  Being rather interested in snakes, and having handled 'hot' (poisonous) snakes before, I decided to see I could find him.  After a little looking around, I spotted him at the base of a couple trees, in a little bit of brush.  Laurel had come out to see how the kids were doing, and she warned me about not doing anything stupid (why's she always worried???)   The copperhead was small, maybe a year old, maybe even fairly newly hatched.  I quickly located a stick that would serve to hold his head down well enough for me to safely pick him up.  Which is exactly what I proceeded to do.  However, once I removed the stick, I realized how agile a copperheads mouth is... he managed to twist his face enough to dig one fang into the side of the first joint in my right-hand index finger.  It immediately drew blood, and I was sure that he'd had enough time to inject venom.  Once I had my grip solid enough on him, I started chewing on the bite area and sucking to draw the poison out (I think that probably helped a lot).  I showed off the snake to Laurel and my folks, and then tossed him out into the chapel yard, and Laurel got some plaintain and made a little poultice to put over the bite (I had tried to lance it a little bit, but my knife was too dull to do a decent job).

So, we headed home, and researched a bit online.  Laurel called Poison Control and they strongly suggested we get to the ER and get some antivenin (no, it's actually not 'anti-venom').  So, we went to the ER, got checked in, did our paperwork (which I couldn't fill in myself, since my finger was quite swollen and starting to hurt a good bit), and then the doc came to see us.  He was extremely surprised Poison Control would just blanket recommend antivenin, and said we should wait and see what happens.  We waited for a couple hours and the swelling seemed to be coming down, at which point he said to keep a close eye on it for 24 hours and take it easy.

All in all, a rather eventful evening!

I'll get some pics up in the afternoon, hopefully.  ;)