I brought in the New Year experiencing pain that some have compared to going through childbirth. Since I haven’t experienced the latter, I’ll just say that it hurt like hell and I wish I’d have passed out instead. But no - that would have been the easy way! So what brought on this pain? …
There I was spending my New Year’s day on the California coast. The water was way too cold so we just waded in up to our knees. Someone in my group said we should shuffle our feet because a friend of his got stung by a sting ray on another beach nearby. I was like … “Hmmm, okay…” and then probably forgot about it. After about 5 minutes in the water and standing in one place for quite a bit of time, we turned around.
And that’s when it hit! I felt a sharp jab right under my left foot and I jumped in terror. By the time I got out of the water the wound was bleeding profusely and pain was shooting up my leg. I felt chilly. The pain was insane. I was so far gone that I wondered if I would need to call 911. And the reason I say “I was so far gone” is because it costs a small fortune to call 911 in the U.S.. but I was way beyond caring about money.
The friend who had advised us to do the “sting ray shuffle” came to our rescue! What followed involved a lot of screaming and howling. No tears surprisingly. The drive home was excruciatingly painful. But I was assured that soaking my foot in hot water would relieve my pain. Apparently, the hot water breaks down the proteins present in the sting ray venom. That is the only cure available. So when we got home, that’s what we did - except it was such scalding hot water! After almost 6-8 hours of horrendous pain it finally subsided to a dull throb.
How I wish that would have been the end of it. But it was not meant to be. My new year was slated to get worse before it got better.
So the sting was right under my foot which meant I now had a gaping wound under my foot which made normal walking out of the question. Usually after the venom breaks down, life gets back to normal. Not for me though! The hot water had been so hot that I got a giant boil surrounding my wound. The boil then got infected.
Living in a country with one of the best health care facilities in the world but the worst possible system for dispensing that health care, we decided to forego going to a doctor. Now that the venom was gone, all it was was an infected wound and we thought “antibiotic cream should do the trick, right?” Well, it did do the trick but it took more than 2 weeks to completely heal. I did finally go my university doctor (since that is insured) and was told that I did everything right and now just needed to heal.
First I get stung by a sting ray on new year’s day and endure the most horrific pain of my life and then realize that I got stung in one of the worst possible places on the body which rendered me unable to walk properly for the coming weeks.
On the bright side, a sting ray wound has been found to be fatal only when it hits the upper torso … Remember the crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin? He died of a sting ray bite… guess i should be happy I am alive… :P
