'the belt story'

one of my most popular stories is about how leaving my belt on floor nearly lost me my foot. keep reading, its a good one.

early fall my junior year of high school, i woke up like every other day, jumped off my top bunk and felt pain like nothing before. i sit on the bottom bunk lift up my foot and my belt comes with it. the prong part that slips in the notch had punctured the bottom of my foot and i could see it pushing up the skin on the top. i must have gone into fight or flight mode, because without thinking i pulled it out. i hoped down the stairs went into my parents bedroom told them 'ummm...mom, dad, i stabbed my self with my belt but i pulled it out and i'm ok. i'm going to go to school now.

i limped around for a few days. and i was fine after that...or so i thought. it would be funny story if i just left off there. but no if i do something outrageous i have to go all the way.

a year later, my senior year of high school, i was on my feet a lot. i was drum major and working at dairy queen nearly full time. it was a crazy busy time. i noticed a bump forming on the bottom of my foot and it hurt more after being on my feet all day. when it started bothering me all the time, i told my mother and we went to the foot doctor. i told him all about the belt and pulling it out. he asked me if it bled when i pulled the belt out. i didnt think anything of it till he said something. a little trivia real quick: if puncture wounds dont bleed, thats BAD. when a wound bleeds the body is flushing out anything that shouldnt be there. if it doesnt bleed the body is a perfect place for whatever to grow and fester. all this to say when i pulled the belt out of my foot, it didnt bleed. the doctor determined that there was a cyst on my foot. we planned surgery and everything was going to ok after that.

i had surgery on a wednessday in feburary. everything went fine and i was to see the doctor the next wednesday for a check up. and if that was the end of the story, it would still be crazy, but its not.

thursday i felt great, i barely needed any pain meds, i was walking around on crutches just fine. friday i felt a little sick, saturday i was in pain but had the darvocet so i was cool. then, on sunday, i felt like i was dying. i was stretching out my pain medication as far as possible. i had a dressing on my foot and was told not to remove it till i saw the doctor. i could only see my toes which were purple, kinda green and i knew something was really, really wrong. i was crying, throwing up, i was in so much pain i could barely think. my father called the emergency line and they said i could losen the wraping around my foot. i did and it hurt more. being the cuirous person i am, i took a look and the insicion. what i saw, it is not describable. the stitches were raised off the bottome of my foot about an inch, the the wound went from being a tiny half and inch insicion to a raised blister, if you will, about three inches long and two inches wide. my foot was colors that dont naturally exist in a human.

we called and made an apointment for monday with the doctor so he could take a look at it. when the nurse saw it, she stop in her tracks and said 'i all my years i've never seen anything like that.' gives a person a lot of confidence right? when the doctor came in his face went pale. he took a look said 'huh...did we put you on antibiotics after surgery?' no, they did not.

he lanced it and all the pain i'd been feeling for the last few days started to be relieved. as he pressed on the wound and examined it, i was torn between extreme pain and total intrest. if it looked bad on the outside, it was nothing compared to the damage on the inside. the dead tissue extended about two inches into my foot. the doctor told me that my foot would take a lot longer to heal than previously estemated. well, duh. he also said my foot may not ever heal completly. but i was also lucky becuase, if the infection had gone any further, i could have very possibly lost my whole foot. and even more awesome, if the infection would have gotten into my blood stream, i could have died. yeah, awesome.

i had to do wet to dry dressings for the next, month and a half. by the way doing your own wet to dry is... well, rough. actually any wet to dry is rough. i dont care who you are. i learn to deal with a lot of pain during the time, lets just say that. still to this day my right foot bothers me after really long days but its nothing to complain about. and i have this cool half inch by inch and half scar where i have no feeling.

all that to say...dont leave your belts lying on floor where you can step on them, or at least look before you leap.
all for now. hope you enjoyed
-erl