Okay, here I am, an instructor, and dumb founded at just how dumb I can be.
MY STORY: I was diving on a blown up old wreck down in Pompano Beach, FL.
NOT WEARING GLOVES, for some reason I decided to place my tender hands on the side of the wreck and gently push myself over the edge, for no good reason except to do it... I barely touched the wreck, but I cut myself... Now this is where the stupidity began (aside from not wearing gloves which was the stupidity that caused the whole problem).
I decided to stay down and check out this shark that was chill under a reef ledge.
Through some neosporen on it, and a band aid and called it good... tiny little cut on my little pinky finger, deep, but didn't think nothing of it...
WELL... the next day it looked like what I would expect, a little white around the edge of the cut, but other than that nothing terrible (that white edge was a sign by the way, infection)...
Then I decided to go surfing for like 8 hours with my girlfriend the next day, my finger was involved in the paddling of course... and then over the next day I began to feel a little itching in my finger, and I felt tenderness under my arm pits, I thought it was from surfing or doing push ups, thought the itching was from just being a dirty minger (as my girlfriend calls me)...
Well... I woke up about 5 days later (SATURDAY morning) and couldn't lift my arms up at all (My lymph nodes where swelled up like baseballs), and my finger was black... BUT, I AM A MAN, so I was going to wait until Monday to go to the hospital because i had a scuba class to teach that weekend and I wasn't about to stay out of the water, I got out of bed at 5am, then fell back on the bed at 5:05 calling for my girlfriend as I was passing out... next we went to the ER, where I was passing out while in a wheel chair, couldn't believe it, thought I was dying, had cephelitus going up my arm, infection in my blood, etc.........
So, spent 6 days in the hospital hooked up to IV's running 24/7 (having some NASTY reactions to some of the antibiotics, something called RED MAN syndrome, apparentely they call it that because your head turns red, but I call it that because it feels like there are native americans beating on tom toms inside your head while your head is turning into a big red balloon...
They wanted to keep me for another week, but there was a swell from an offshore storm and I wanted to go to the beach to see my girlfriend....
Any way, $14,000+ medical bills, loss of teaching a class, TORTURED for 6 days, and a swollen liver and spleen... all this could have been prevented simply by wearing REEF GLOVES>......
LEARN FROM MY STUPIDITY.
MY STORY: I was diving on a blown up old wreck down in Pompano Beach, FL.
NOT WEARING GLOVES, for some reason I decided to place my tender hands on the side of the wreck and gently push myself over the edge, for no good reason except to do it... I barely touched the wreck, but I cut myself... Now this is where the stupidity began (aside from not wearing gloves which was the stupidity that caused the whole problem).
I decided to stay down and check out this shark that was chill under a reef ledge.
Through some neosporen on it, and a band aid and called it good... tiny little cut on my little pinky finger, deep, but didn't think nothing of it...
WELL... the next day it looked like what I would expect, a little white around the edge of the cut, but other than that nothing terrible (that white edge was a sign by the way, infection)...
Then I decided to go surfing for like 8 hours with my girlfriend the next day, my finger was involved in the paddling of course... and then over the next day I began to feel a little itching in my finger, and I felt tenderness under my arm pits, I thought it was from surfing or doing push ups, thought the itching was from just being a dirty minger (as my girlfriend calls me)...
Well... I woke up about 5 days later (SATURDAY morning) and couldn't lift my arms up at all (My lymph nodes where swelled up like baseballs), and my finger was black... BUT, I AM A MAN, so I was going to wait until Monday to go to the hospital because i had a scuba class to teach that weekend and I wasn't about to stay out of the water, I got out of bed at 5am, then fell back on the bed at 5:05 calling for my girlfriend as I was passing out... next we went to the ER, where I was passing out while in a wheel chair, couldn't believe it, thought I was dying, had cephelitus going up my arm, infection in my blood, etc.........
So, spent 6 days in the hospital hooked up to IV's running 24/7 (having some NASTY reactions to some of the antibiotics, something called RED MAN syndrome, apparentely they call it that because your head turns red, but I call it that because it feels like there are native americans beating on tom toms inside your head while your head is turning into a big red balloon...
They wanted to keep me for another week, but there was a swell from an offshore storm and I wanted to go to the beach to see my girlfriend....
Any way, $14,000+ medical bills, loss of teaching a class, TORTURED for 6 days, and a swollen liver and spleen... all this could have been prevented simply by wearing REEF GLOVES>......
LEARN FROM MY STUPIDITY.