Two days later, I was sick. Not only did I feel diseased, I had a huge infected mess where my foot used to be. I went to the ER. They told me I had a staph infection.

"No," I cried, "Anything but my staff!"

I got big drugs. I went back to the orthopedist. And do you know what he did? Do you have any idea what that sadist did? Without warning, without medication, he REOPENED THE INCISION. The incision that went nearly all the way through my foot. Yeah. THAT incision. Then (I swear I am not making this up) he packed it full of gauze.

And here I thought that the whole needle-in-the-inflamed-nerve trick was the worst pain ever. Nuh-uh. This pain beat that pain by a country mile.

Try this at home kids. Cut a deep hole in your foot and scrape the sides with gauze. Hurts, don’t it? Now go tell Mom that your brother did this to you. Fun, huh?

And so began my current odyssey of pain. For about three weeks, I saw the doctor every couple of days. He’d pull the bloody, puss-filled strip of gauze out of my foot hole and jam in another one. (Did I mention this hurt? Did I? Because it did. It goddamn hurt.)

After awhile, I think the doc just got tired of looking at me. He handed me a pair of tweezers and a jar of sterile gauze, and told me to repack my own festering foot hole at home - twice a day.

And so I did. Every morning and every evening I pulled out a nasty length of gauze from my foot. Then I pushed in a fresh one. It was like that game Operation. Remember the one? You’d take out the funny bone. But if you bumped the sides of the “patient,” his nose would light up. I did the same thing, except a lot more swearing. A couple of times, I even managed to get sick during the process. Fun for the whole family.

Self-treatment was a learning experience. I learned that I can hurt myself bad enough to actually barf. I learned that bones are kind of slippery. And most important of all, I learned to never, ever, ever - no matter what - let isopropyl alcohol touch exposed nerves.

Oh yeah, the duct tape thing - I was not supposed to get my foot hole wet. So I either taped a plastic bag around my foot, or just wrapped the whole thing in duct tape. That stuff works for EVERYTHING.


* * * * * * * * * *


In 1986, G.J. Caulkins failed to pass the basic writing exam at UC Davis. He has been pounding the keyboard with an embarrassingly personal level of sincerity ever since. Upon graduation, he gave up playing bari sax with the Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh! in favor of the more challenging roles of husband and father.

He remains in Davis with his wife and two sons. A consummate dilettante, he is a published cartoonist, an illustrator, a writer, and he holds down a regular job. His cartoons, writing and other “work” can be found at www.mightywombat.com.