Check out this story!
Let's hope it doesn't happen to anyone else.
Hope you get well soon John!
I was footing last Saturday and hit something. It felt like I ripped my foot wide open, so I let go and grabbed my foot. To my surprise, there was only a little cut on the bottom of my foot. I swam back a little ways to look for what I might have hit. I found a stick 4ft long and an inch in diameter. I figured I must have hit it on the end and sprained my planters fascia (sp?) tendon. It was 10 in the morning, and I began to ice my foot. The pain was tremendous. I couldn't move my toes without causing a searing pain. We finished out the day with me as designated driver and headed for home. After dinner and birthday cake (mine), I went upstairs to lay down and continue icing and elevation. I was a bit surprised because the pain was as great then as it had been in the morning. An hour later, with my wife and kids at Blockbuster, I started to go into shock. Fortunately, one of my kids stayed at home to finish the dishes. She called 911 and I was taken to the hospital. After the usual ER wait and several X-rays, I was told that my foot was not broken. Given the intense pain I was experiencing and the lack of broken bones, the ER Doc diagnosed that I had a severely sprained planter fascia (sp?). He said he was going to put my foot in a cast to aid healing and send me home. I told him that my tetanus booster was out of date and that there was a cut on the bottom of my foot. I asked to get a shot before being sent along. I'm sure glad my booster was out of date because he decided to check the X-ray again. On it, he found the slender shadow, approximately 3/4" long, of the object embedded in my foot. This is when the real hell began. I had been going back and forth from chills to sweating bullets and nausea all this time. My foot, extremely tender even to a simple touch, was now about to get stuck with a needle. It took a couple of people to hold me down. 10 minutes later when he returned, I told him my foot had started to hurt again. He looked at me in disbelief stating that it takes 45 minutes for the lidacane (sp?) to wear off. It had. An infection had reduced its effectiveness. Once again, this time more thoroughly, he jabbed a needle into my foot. I'm sure I was heard from one end of the ER to the other. He cut down 1/2" and failed to find the object (which I assumed was a wood splinter). He said 1/2" was a far as he could go, so I would have to be admitted and go to the OR for surgery. I sure wished he would have looked closer at the X-ray; he could have seen that the object was about 3/4" into my foot. An orthopedic surgeon performed the surgery. It took him over 1/2 hour to find the object even with the help of the ultra sound and other special equipment in the OR. (So nice to be sleeping this time.) My foot was loaded with infection (the reason for my going into shock 11 hours after the incident), so I spent the next five days in the hospital including another trip to the OR to clean out the wound again. Discharged, I am now on IV antibiotics for two weeks. The object, it turned out, was not a splinter, but a dorsal fin spike of a fish. A bacteria they harbor produces a powerful toxin. What a freak happening! Back in '92, I heard of someone who had to have a dorsal fin spike removed surgically. I thought it a very remote possibility indeed. Anybody else had this happen? I sure hope it is very rare!
John Chall