“I was
walking through the garden one day! In
the merry merry month of… September”
The
generator is located on the far side of the shop from the house. This is great when it comes to reducing noise
pollution but means a bit of a walk when it comes time to shut the generator
down at night. Since we do not have the
concrete pathways thrown yet, this means a Beau Geste style slog through the
sand that is my garden at the moment. It’s
no hardship really. On a clear night,
the stars, filtered through the rustling leaves of the many palm trees on the
property are divine and Charlie loves these midnight walks.
As this is
a hot country, I tend to wear sandals and shorts when at home, far more
comfortable and convenient than boots and safari gear. But this is bush. My nearest neighbour is half a mile away and
at night, the silence is deafening.
Just over
36 hours ago, I set off for the generator, Charlie gambolling along by my side
when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my big toe. I shone the torch down to inspect it but
could see little else but a couple of beads of blood. There is a type of weed that grows in profusion
around here that casts spiky seeds presenting a constant, but no more than
irritating hazard to those walking in bare feet or, indeed, sandals, so I
thought no more of it, switched the generator off and went to bed.
At one
thirty in
the morning I woke up. My toe was on
fire. Bugger, I thought, I have probably
picked up a chigger. Chiggers are a type
of flea that burrow into flesh, usually under toe nails and have to be
carefully and painfully excised so as not to burst the egg sac for doing so
would only multiply the grief. My maid
may be pretty much useless in all other respects but she is unsurpassed when it
comes to digging chiggers out so I resigned myself to five minutes brutal
torture the following morning and tried to go back to sleep.
By three in
the morning, I was extremely discomfited.
By four I was running a fever yet my teeth were chattering
uncontrollably I felt so cold. I reached
for the torch on my bedside table but clumsily knocked it to the floor the
impact with which smashed it.
Bugger, I
thought, a chigger AND malaria. So I
resigned myself to the few miserable hours left of the night before Marcia woke
up and could go and get me a malaria treatment from the pharmacy. I never slept a wink and as the throbbing of
my toe increased and rose up my calf muscle, I wondered just how many chiggers
I had picked up. I spent that night sitting
at my desk smoking and drinking whisky in the dark. Just before dawn, shivering yet lathered in
perspiration and with a blinding headache, I vomited copiously. It’s definitely malaria, I thought as I
hobbled painfully to the kitchen to feel around for a cloth so I could clean
the mess off Marcia’s newly varnished wooden floor.
Just as it
was light enough to see, Marcia awoke and came out of the bedroom. ‘Don’t tell me you have spent the whole night
in front of your computer drinking’, she said with ill disguised contempt.
‘I think I
have malaria’, I said to her retreating back, ‘and I have a sore toe’
She didn’t
say anything but her body language said, ‘Diddums’
I hobbled
over to one of the windows and raised the blind to let in more early morning
light before making my way to the sofa.
I placed my foot onto the coffee table so I could give my toe a good
look.
‘Come and
have a look at this, Marcia’, I called out.
‘Meu Deus!’
she said. My God indeed.
‘I bet that
hurts,’ she continued.
‘Well, it
is jolly uncomfortable’, I conceded while I stared in fascination at my toe. I decided to take a photograph:
Seven hours after the incident |
A few hours
later, I took another:
I have to
confess, I was amazed at the speed of the necrosis. The nip on the toe that started all this occurred
Saturday night. It was now Sunday so the
nearest medical attention would be a clinic several hours away in Luanda .
All they would do is scrub the appendage and dose me up with
antibiotics. I was perfectly capable of
doing that myself and, besides. Harald Klein was coming for Sunday lunch, our
first ever guest to the new house and I had set my heart on preparing his favourite
German dishes so I wasn’t about to call the whole show off over a sore toe. Both of us, during the war, had endured far
worse.
Klein is
diabetic. When he noticed my toe he was
immediately concerned and produced his survival pack for diabetics and insisted
on testing my blood sugar. I never knew
that the toes of diabetics could fall off suddenly. Lepers, sure, no use playing poker with
lepers, they’re forever tossing their hands in. I thought untreated diabetics went blind, then
fell into comas and died. ‘Not so’, said
Klein who, being German was too polite to acknowledge irony. Good old Klein, he is the uncle I never had.
I submitted
myself to the test (which required me drawing my own blood) and scored 115 on
his machine.
‘Is that
good?’ I asked.
‘I’m over
200!’ said Klein.
‘OK, you
win’, I replied.
‘Are you
going to go to hospital?’ Marcia asked me much later that evening.
‘Nope.’ I
replied without averting my gaze from the TV, ‘If I go to one of the clinics
what do you think the Cuban doctor will do to my toe?’ I looked at Marcia, ‘realistically?’
Marcia didn’t say anything.
‘Temos que cortar o dedo!’ I said in a probably very poor imitation of a Cuban
doctor speaking Portuguese saying, “We have to amputate your toe”. I think Marcia’s silence said it all. Cuban doctor’s here are famous for amputating
rather than reconstructing.
‘I am very
fond of my toe,’ I continued, ‘we have been friends for life. I am emotionally, figuratively and physically
attached to my toe. Just because he is
sick, I am not going to abandon him. I
will wash him, excise dead flesh and dose myself up to the eyeballs with
antibiotics.’ I decided to record
another stage of my developing toe:
Oh dear! Everything swollen, surrounding flesh bright pink... |
Last night
was pretty uncomfortable, wild dreams, fever, sweaty, freezing wakefulness and
throbbing all the way up to my knee. My
toe now looked like this:
‘Are we
going to hospital?’ Marcia asked me.
‘It’s
slowed down!’ I said to Marcia, ‘look! Last night it only advanced half a
centimetre.’
‘Yesterday
you said if it went past the joint, you would go to hospital,’ she complained, ‘well
isn’t that past the joint?’
‘I think we
leave it one more day, Marcia,’ I said, ‘give the antibiotics time to kick in.’
Oh come
on! They don’t let you smoke or drink in
hospital. I’d only go there in a real
emergency.
Tom know you are a tough old bird
ReplyDeleteBut for fucks sake
GO TO HOSPITAL
You need IV antibiotics
And a full blood review
Shakes head
You are a mad fucker......
X
A full review of my blood might be a trifle embarrassing...
DeleteAnd probably a fucking X-ray
ReplyDelete( if I couple pickle your innate bodily strength and could bottle it) I would be a rich man
Instead of leaving my body to science, I shall leave it to you. Should make for some interesting posts over on Going Gently.
DeleteYEEUCGH! Take Nurse Gray's advice and get your throbbing appendage attended to tout-suite! It is quite amazing how quickly the infection took hold. Are you sure it wasn't a snake bite? For effective ambulation that big toe is so vital. You certainly don't want to lose it.
ReplyDeleteThrobbing appendage?
DeleteHow very Charles hawtrey
Can't be sure what it was YP. Rest assured I will look after the old toe.
DeleteAh, suck it up, you'll be fine! said NO ONE with a dying toe. Seriously man, go get it sorted or else you're gonna be saying adios to your lifetime friend pretty soon. Unless it continues to progress of course, then you could lose your foot but what the heck, by that time your body will succumbing to blood poison anyway. Yes, you keep on chucking naff antibiotics down your gullet - way to go!! Let us know how that works out for you ;)
ReplyDeleteGosh. You remind me of Jeremy Clarkson. He shoots from the hip as well!
DeleteI do try lmao. Glad to hear you 'think' it's on the mend though :)
DeleteSNAKEBITE! STOP and HURRY to hospital!
ReplyDeleteBefore everyone loses their heads, first we have to confirm that it was a snake bite and then complete all the necessary pre admission paperwork
DeleteI am more worried about his raised blood sugar
ReplyDeleteAny snake that bites tom will be pissed in under 30 seconds xxx
Is my blood sugar elevated? Klein said it was OK.
DeleteHoly cow! That looks bad. Adding you to my blogroll to keep up with how you are doing.
ReplyDeleteI like you blog, thanks for dropping by. With a blog title like Beach Bum, I just had to take a peek!
DeleteVisiting from John's Bosoms. I think maybe you would have died by now if you were going to.
ReplyDeleteUncle Crit used to keep dried snake root and chew it when he was bitten. He was bitten a lot!
I hope the swelling goes down soon and your toe does not fall off. Happy healing.
Hi Gail! Nice to see you! Well I am not dead but for future incidentes like this, I sure could use some of your Uncle's Snake Root!
DeleteSadly Uncle Crit's been for years but not from snake bite. I cannot identify the plant.
DeleteOMG. Please seek medical attention. My foot and leg swelled up like that from bites from a wee flying beastly in a mangrove swamp. Lots of injections for that. Obviously not the toe part.
ReplyDeleteIt looks very angry and red!
Holding thumbs for you!
Can't be bothered with medical attention! They don't call them Sawbones for nothing!
DeleteI came over from your friend's blog as Africa and hippos are interesting to me, but ay yi yi, your toe is scarey. Please find a GOOD doctor!
ReplyDeleteAnd now you have discovered that my blog has absolutely nothing to do with Hippos! Thankyou very much for visiting, I am sure I will get better.
DeleteAnother visitor from John's home. Urk. And urk again. You are such a stoic - perhaps past the point of sanity?
ReplyDeleteBush Crazy I think they cal it!
DeleteCame over from John's blog.....
ReplyDeleteIn Arizona when a Rattlesnake bites you it is off to the hospital ! The poison affect more than just where you get bitten. We have all the symptoms you said then it leads to heart failure.
It gets hot here 118 + in the summer but when I go outside I always wear covered shoes.
That toe looks really bad.
I hope when you read this you are better.
cheers, parsnip
Getting better, thanks! Here it is the puff adder.
DeleteI am feeling badly about my earlier comment. My Hubby looked at the picture and said you should go or you might lose the whole foot. Hubby is concerned about gangrene. If you knew it immediately kerosene is the old time treatment for a snake bite.
ReplyDeleteI thought your earlier comment was very nice. The kerosene trick is new to me, I'll get some in!
DeleteYour boys both need a father who can walk around and watch over and guide them. Stop that macho bu##sh*t and get to those IV drugs or the consequences could be dire and I'm not talking about just a toe!!
ReplyDelete"or the consequences could be dire"
DeleteYou're going to come over here and give me a good kicking!
I'm surprised Marcia hasn't done that already !!
DeleteSorry tom
ReplyDeleteI needed re enforcements x
And my, didn't they turn up!
DeleteGeejusss! Get yourself to hospital asap please Tom!
ReplyDeleteIt's only a sore toe!
DeleteYEEUCGH! Take Nurse Gray's advice and get your throbbing appendage attended to tout-suite! It is quite amazing how quickly the infection took hold. Are you sure it wasn't a snake bite? For effective ambulation that big toe is so vital. You certainly don't want to lose it.
ReplyDeleteNot sure it was a snake, could've been I suppose but I didn't see anything in the dark. It's not that bad really.
DeleteI hope that the fact that you posted this four times in a row does not mean that you keeled over onto the keyboard, but rather went running (well hopping) to the hospital and the computer had a mind of it's own.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that, now corrected. Perhaps feverish fingers trembling multiple times on the post button.
DeleteI speak from experience. I waited too long for a simple blister on my big toe to heal 7 years ago. It never looked as bad as yours, and they cut it off. That was here in the U.S., no Cuban doctors. I was in the hospital for 7 stinking days while they made sure the infection had been eliminated with the toe, otherwise I would have lost half my foot. Do not mess with your favorite toe. I miss mine every day.
ReplyDeleteBlimey! In the States they cut your toe off for a blister!!!
DeleteNo way I'd go to a doctor in the States now!
Bloody hell. Now perhaps you'll take me more seriously when I suggest keeping a Mongoose! I shall be doing my famous 'Toe healing' dance for you. I presume by now you will have been to the quack.... let us know!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen a goose kill a snake, Cro? I'm not being flippant now, the mongoose idea is great but I was stunned to see Goosie kill a snake. The snake struck repeatedly but only managed a mouthfull of feathers while Goosie wore the bastard down nipping at it with wings outstretched to confuse it until it was a punctured inner tube. Amazing.
DeleteI see St Francis has sent in the troops.
ReplyDeleteAm in two minds as to how to respond. It is not easy to tread a fine line between telling someone he is an idiot and uploading a bucket full of commiserations. Of course, one could say you are already two fingers short what's a toe here or there? Give it a few more years and there will be little ashes of you left to be added to dust.
I sincerely hope you are not dead yet,
U
I'm not
DeleteHop foot it to hospital NOW Tom. Better that than hop footing it for the rest of your days. One leg and a swinger ain't no good for no man.
ReplyDeleteLLX
So long as the swinger still works?
DeleteIf all else fails, and amputation is called for, may I suggest the 'Service Revolver' method, and a quick jog on the beach (in salt water). You may not live, but the method has kudos!
ReplyDeleteOnly a true Gentleman could offer such sensible advice.
DeleteIf you are still alive to read this - GET TO A DOCTOR AND GET THAT BL**DY TOE SEEN TO - please :-)
ReplyDeleteAnother friend of your favourite medic John, dashing over to tell you off.
At least get it checked out, big toes are pretty useful you know, you could end up losing this one, please spare all it's little friends or you could be wearing one size 10 boot and one size 6.
But I'm normally a size nine?
DeleteThanks for popping over, I'll be alright.
Thought I had left a message this morning. STOP Just checking back on your progress. STOP. Lots of people worried STOP. laugh though that you have enough presence of mind to blog about the ordeal to let your readers know STOP
ReplyDeleteThankyou Carol. Will work my way through the many gratefully received comments and then post an update!
DeleteYup I'm over from John's too...looks bad to me Tom. Please let us read your next post from hospital.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter was bitten by a spider while working in America this summer. The two little marks on her ankle looked like a Vampire had missed his mark !
Seriously, hope you seek medical attention quickly.
So nice of you to drop by, Penny!
DeleteNo, I am not writing this from hospital. I reckon I am confident I will be able to dispense with expensive medical attention.
Another member of John's army ... please get to hospital ... now!
ReplyDeleteThe4re are no táxis this time of the night, I have nothing to wear, my suit is still in the cleaners, my boots don't fit anymore...
DeleteEnough excuses?
I know who the real hero is in this story - Marcia. Good god shes got the patience of a saint....though it was nice that you did clean up her new floor...shes just going to have to wait until your in a coma to take you in, isnt she...Meanwhile you did make me laugh out loud at the leper card joke.
ReplyDeleteFeminist!
DeleteGlad you liked the joke. It was adapted from the joke; Two lepers playing cards, one threw his hand in, the other laughed his head off.
I'm amazed you like these sick jokes. I have more...
youre amazed? you forgot - i do follow your blog...LOL
DeleteI know what you mean about the rural medical community - here in montana im better off at home googling what ails me versus going to the local clinic 45 miles away where they dont have a doctor on staff, but they do have a nurse who also works at the local bank. Id take my chances too, if they are chop happy...
and marcia is still a saint. ;p
Hey tom I think from your writings you were like me never bothered with hospitals until it was too late, mate seriously get your backside in there, take it from me after everything I went through with my kidneys & blood clots you are not doing yourself any favours, what's worse being without a cigarette for a few hours or being without a big toe for the rest of your live, I know what I would choose!
ReplyDeleteA cigarette?
DeleteYe you said you can't smoke or drink at the hospital......you sure it's your toe that's got something wrong with it.....lol
DeleteBloody hell. You still didn't say what caused it for sure, but that toe aint gonna heal with a wing and a prayer. You need to head pronto to a hospital. Amputation or no, you're heading for septicaemia, if you try to deal with it yourself. Sod the fags and booze for 24 hours.
ReplyDeleteOh, My dear Addy, stop fussing! It's only a sore toe and, I have a spare!
DeleteI have no idea what caused it. All I felt was a nip in the night.
Oh man...that's gross. It looks bad to my totally untrained medical eye. Hospital pronto seems like the only way to go. Hope they sort it out quickly for your sake....don't wait, looks like that's not going to fix itself
ReplyDeleteYou wanna bet? Normally they swab wounds with alcohol on the outside, I'm swabbing it from the inside....
DeleteHoly sh*t dude....you need to go to the hospital!!!! I'm sitting here cringing as I look at those pictures! Aren't you afraid of blood poisoning? And losing a toe?
ReplyDeleteI admire your manliness, but you really should do something. What does your wife say? I'd give my husband such a hard time going to the hospital would be preferable to listening to me!
The only thing that will cure this is loads of antibiotics. I can scoff those at home!
DeleteI hope you foot is getting better!
ReplyDeleteI think it is...
DeleteWell..........? An update picture would perhaps be in order to be added someday to some obscure medical journal. It's clear now that medical help was not procured. Perhaps wisely. I'm assuming that it is getting better and or has fallen off by now. The peg leg will be a nice addition and conversation piece. It could be hollow, which has interesting possibilities for storage of antibiotics, in case the other side incurs the same problem in the future.
ReplyDeleteIf my peg leg was hollow it would have a whiskt dispener fitted!
DeleteIF YOU ARE STILL UPRIGHT AND STILL HAVE ALL YOUR TOES AND GET THROUGH THIS..............then I want you in my lifeboat when the time comes.........
ReplyDeleteDoes your life boat have a well stocked drinks cabinet?
DeleteSh****t ....you now that its a snake bite?!
ReplyDeleteright? And ,like jenny said it can cause blood poisoning...
GET YOUR F***NG A** UP AND GO TO THE HOSPITAL...
luv u
Really, Son? I thought it was just a blister caused by my boots!
DeleteYou know how I feel about hospitals. Ask your mother how many times I did a runner from the Sagrada Esperanca when I woke up and found myself there!
Hi Dominic, I hope all is going well over there. Looks like your dad has go himself in another fine mess.
DeleteI've just been catching up on your blog as I tried to read this the otehr morning over breakfast then thought better of it when I saw the picture. I think a fine toothed tennon saw would probably be best to take him off with, and there's me moaningt o my wife about an ingrown toe nail!
ReplyDeleteI did a Google Image search on sore toe --- you blew them away. Then I did a search on swollen toe -- similar outcome. Then I did a search on septic toe - now you have some stiff competition. Try not to stub it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I didn't read this before your more recent post that hints that you may have been able to keep your toe. I can think of some pretty choice phrases for Marcia to use (in Spanish with a Cuban-Portuguese accent if you want).
ReplyDeleteI have swollen glands and have been to the doctor twice.
i was googling something else entirely (cat nails) and your article came up in my results and the picture caught my attention so I came to your website to see what it was about. i note the date of the incident was over 2 years ago - so what happened? do you still have your toe? was it a snake bite? did you seek out and receive medical attention? you built the story up, but left it with no ending!!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh Ho !!! Sad!! Thank you for sharing this comprehensive list. This will be very helpful for anyone looking to hire a reputable and trustworthy property management company. It is important that you feel your properties will be well cared for, that there are solid procedures in place for all scenarios, and that your tenants will feel comfortable with the management company. All of these things, and more, can affect your property’s turnover rate and need to be addressed upfront.
ReplyDeletehttp://onedaytop.com/take-best-satisfactory-lotion-psoriasis/