Okay, two broken arms and now blood poisoning. I guess I
have to redefine my interpretation of not being accident prone.
I am not sure how it happened. It was most likely at ward
service project. But I stepped on a big, old rusty nail. The nail went through
the bottom of my shoe, grabbed a piece of my dirty sock, and penetrated the soul
of my foot.
Yeah, it hurt.
But the pain from the initial shock of having a rusty nail
in my foot was only the beginning, once the nail was extracted, that pain subsided
almost instantly. The real problem came in the following days – when it got
infected.
This time, the delay in getting my minor injury properly treated
rested almost entirely on my shoulders. I say almost because Matt has to bear
part of the blame. Sure, I stepped in the nail. Clearly that was my fault. But
Matt is responsible for the infection, sort of…
Not long before I stepped on the nail, Matt had done so earlier.
Mom took him to the doctor and he had to get a tetanus shot. Matt made the
whole shot experience sound horrible. After hearing his account and how brave
he was to endure the shot, I vowed never to have to get a tetanus shot. Because
of what I heard, I had envisioned a needle maybe a foot long that would bore
through the skin right into the bone.
There was no way I wanted to go through that harrowing
experience so I made sure not to tell Mom about the rusty nail. No, I wasn't
afraid of needles per se. By this time I was getting weekly allergy shots. But
Matt made it sound so bad that I would rather die than get a tetanus shot.
Well a few days passed and my foot began to ache more and
more. It began to swell and I noticed a small red line slowly creeping up my
ankle. That made me nervous. I finally showed my Mom and told her about the
rusty nail.
As predicted, she made an appointment with Dr. Wood and now I
had to come face to face with, what I thought would be, my biggest fear – the tetanus
shot. Unfortunately, the shot was the easiest part of my doctor’s visit.
It turned out that embedded in my puncture wound was a small
piece of my tennis shoe and my dirty sock. Those two foreign objects, though
the doctor said it was mainly the small piece of my shoe, caused a serious
infection which resulted in blood poisoning. That was why I had a red line
climbing towards my heart.
So, before I got my dreaded tetanus shot, (which was really
no big deal, Matt was such as wimp) the doctor had to dig out the foreign items
from my wound. Not only did I get a tetanus shot, but I had several anesthetic shots
near the wound to deaden the area as the doctor dug out my shoe and dirty sock.
Lessons learned: 1) when it comes to pain, don’t listen to
Matt, 2) when you get hurt, tell your mom, and 3) don’t step on a rusty nail.
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