What an absolutely insane 4 months this has been. I know I have an incredible amount of catching up to do... and it was one of my New Year's resolutions to keep up with the blog better. I forget how fun it is for me to go back and read all this and remember exactly what was going on at that particular moment. And I KNOW the majority of the posts will be hilarious years from now - you know, when we're rich and pampered and live in a 5,000 square foot Mediterranean influenced waterfront palace of my design, of course. As Lane says, "nothin' to it but to do it", so here we go.
So to start with, from one of my last posts (4.5 months ago) I mentioned a man of war sting and a kitchen remodel that would be "another post". Yeah well, this is that post. Let's start with the piece of shit man of war.
It was a typical end of the summer Wednesday for us. Our one day off together during the week and the weather was amazing, so fishing we went! On this particular day we went to Amelia Island State Park because our favorite (Hugenot) was closed for some bird mating season or something.
We'd been out on the beach a while and the fish had just started to bite. I remember that specifically because Lane had just caught some bait fish and I was stepping into the water to fill up the bucket for them when it happened.
To anyone that has been stung by a jellyfish... don't even start. I've been stung by jellyfish. Like a million times, in fact. This is NOT a jellyfish sting. A jellyfish sting is a pleasant tickle compared to the horror of a man of war sting. In fact, I would have PAID to have a jellyfish sting me over this insanely gut wrenching, make-me-cry-so-hard-I'm-going-to-vomit type of pain.
And the real bitch of it is that I was in water as deep as the sting goes up on my ankle. Out of how many BAJILLIONS of miles of shoreline, I stepped directly into this entangling trail of man of war tentacles. The pain was so intense and so instant, that the second my ankle hit the water, my vision went black and I fell to the ground. I screamed a blood curdling scream and immediately began to cry hysterically. It is such an insane feeling and it is very difficult to explain, but I'll give it my best shot... It feels like a combination of an electric shock (because it literally does jolt your entire body), a milllion needles dipped in lava, annnnnd maybe acid? And it feels like a net. Like whatever is hurting you may be all over your entire body and you don't know what to do to get it off. And it's instant. It's not like when you cut yourself or something and it takes a few seconds for the pain to really set in. My foot hit the water, and my ass hit the ground. Instant. Yeah. I think that's as accurate as I can get.
So as I'm sitting on the beach (still unable to see) grabbing my ankle, Lane is beyond confused because he can't see anything on me, and I'd literally only had one foot in the water. I think between sobs I managed to say something about "sting" and he looked down at my ankle and furiously started pulling off long, stringy, clear tentacles that had completely swallowed my ankle, and in places had wrapped all the way up my calf. Is it calf? Calve? Neither one look right. My leg.
I was crying so hard and the pain wouldn't stop and we were in a panic. Lane thought that I was about to go into shock, because I literally was sobbing so much that I was close to throwing up. My whole leg was throbbing (and itching!) and burning and the only thing I could think to do was to rub sand all over it. And I mean I buffed that bitch down like I was getting ready to apply a new coat of stain. Word to the wise should you find yourself in this position: DO NOT RUB SAND ON IT. We'll get to the exact reason why in just a bit, but long story short, it makes the sting much worse and it is highly unadvisable. Lane was feverishly Googling remedies... any thing basic (meat tenderizer - which wouldn't you know it, we just didn't happen to have in our beach bag!) or anything acidic (pee, coffee - we had both) is supposed to be the ticket to reducing the pain.
This is the disgusting concoction that I soaked my leg in for about 2 hours. Well, long enough to let the pain subside enough to where I could even entertain the idea of moving/standing again. It is a mixture of melted ice ("they" also do not recommend putting ice on the sting - it's the only thing that really made mine feel better, so what the hell ever), coffee, salt water, and tobacco. We didn't know what else to do. Sidenote: we now have meat tenderizer in the toolbox of Lane's truck.
SO, after an hour or so, I finally stopped crying and could locomote enough to get back in the truck and head home. That night SUCKED. My whole leg throbbed and was itchy and just uncomfortable. Over the next few days as it started to heal (or so I thought), whenever I'd stand for more than a minute or two in the same place, my foot, ankle, and leg all would start to tingle and go numb. Sometimes I would even get jolts of what felt like electric shock in my toes. And just for reference of how serious this shit actually is, this happened just over six months ago and my foot and ankle STILL tingle and go numb from time to time. Apparently - thanks to Google - I now know that the nematocytes in the tentacles can do nerve damage. Man of wars can even kill people. I know that most everyone who knows me thinks that I'm a major over-reactor (my parents call me "Bette Davis"), but this one was legit!
A few days later I thought that I was in the clear. My leg appeared to be healing up nicely, and although I had a newfound respect (and petrifying fear) of the ocean, I was going to be just fine.
Cut to exactly one week later. The freakin' ITCHINNNNNNNNNNNG started. And it wouldn't stop. I tried Benadryl, Benadryl cream, I tried giving in and just clawing the shit out of my leg. Nothing would make the itching stop. It felt like it wasn't even my skin that itched. It felt like it was about the 2 layer of muscle that was itching and no matter what I did I couldn't get to it. After several hours of being tortured by poison ivy of the muscle, I concluded that we had a problem. It was late, so we decided that we'd get up and go to one of those "minute clinic" things in CVS bright and early the next morning. Well fuck CVS. We walk up to the pharmacy - I'm clearly in agony - and ask the pharmacist what we should do. This bitch (clearly annoyed that we are bothering her with our trivial situation) says, "Benadryl or go to the doctor". And turns and walks away. UHHHHH EXCUSE ME?! We just told you that I've been eating Benadryl like M&M's for the last 12 hours and it's not touching the thing. I understand that you're busy, and I KNOW you're not a doctor, but if you don't want to do the "minute clinic" portion of the job then go somewhere else. Or CVS, stop advertising it as some big wonderful thing! I'm really pissed at CVS right now anyway because they recently screwed up some calendars I printed for Christmas at the photo lab, so overall, done with CVS. Anyway, I digress. So basically the minute clinic was just a minute of bullshit and wasted time.
I tried to say that I didn't need to go to the doctor and tough it out. Number one, I didn't want to spend the money on a doctor visit, and number two, I didn't want to spend my and Lane's day off together and the frickin urgent care all day. We went to eat lunch and by the time we were done I couldn't take it any more. This is what my leg looked like. A WEEK later...
Slightly less than ideal. All of those grody little bumps are where the nematocytes had embedded into my skin - because of the FUCKING SAND that I fiercely scrubbed all over it - and as they started to "heal" and come out of my skin, they all fired off their handy little stinging/itching/nerve damaging things again. Perfect. To the urgent care we go.
Suprisingly, the urgent care place was awesome. We were in and out in 40 minutes and for less than $100. The diagonosis? "Infected Man of War Sting". Really? I mean is this even a THING? Has this even happened to anyone else ever in the history of LIFE, or is this my amazing knack for ridiculous injuries rearing it's ugly tentacles again? For cryin' out loud. They gave me two prescriptions - one for the itching, and one antibiotic horse pill - and I had to take them both for ten days.
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| doesnt' look like much in the picture, but it felt like swallowing a canned ham |
As it started to heal more and more, I wondered, "is this m-effer going to SCAR?" Well, here we are 6 months later...
Guess I need to get some Mederma up on this biotch before June... Oh yeah, that's another thing. We got engaged on October 15th and we're getting married June 2, 2012. The engagment story (also a classic) will be another post. It may be 5 months after the wedding, but it's gonna happen.
Until then, don't forget to pack the meat tenderizer!
