six weeks with a foreign object
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Ever since the New Year's, when I went fishing on six separate days, I've had what I thought was a minor infection on my finger from briefly hooking myself while out on the water. Fish hooks are a great source of infections, I don't know what the vectors are (I suspect salmonella and its ilk). Sometimes there would be a cap of dead skin, which told me that something was really wrong. Over the past week, I've taken to keeping an adhesive bandage on it, treated with a powerful antibiotic I've had on hand ever since I had a staph infection picked up at a clinic.
Naturally, the swelling reduced as the infection was defeated. But as today's bandage fell apart, I pulled it off and found that the skin tag had reformed. I absently scratched at it and it fell off - along with a six millimeter length of a tip from the ray of a fish's fin. I'd certainly handled my share of fish over the New Year's period, so I can't say I was surprised. But still: to spend six weeks with a foreign object lodged in your index finger!
