A couple years ago, I was in my hometown to play in a professional golf tournament, and there was the annual Greek Festival at my old church back when I was religious. After the Pro-Am, I went to visit my grandparents and my Uncle from Montana was setting up a tent in their backyard and throwing a frisbee with his dog. I’d never met the dog before so I gave him the old “sniff the back of my hand” gesture. My uncle failed to inform me that the poor pooch interprets that as a threat and before I knew it, he’d clamped down on my bare calf. I shook him off, but not before my uncle slapped the dog. I like most dogs more than most people, so I slugged my uncle for hitting the dog. Pretty much the only time I’ve raised hands with a family member. Though I think both my dad, and my grandpa were secretly happy I did it.

Anyway, it instantly turned black and blue and was bleeding pretty good so I cleaned it up as best I could and headed over to the local instacare. The doc gave me a week’s worth of antibiotics and I went on with the weekend. It hurt like hell and I played barely good enough to finish at the top of the last third of the standings. I went home and finished my week’s worth of antibiotics.

Cut to the following weekend. And I’d recently reconnected with this gal that I kinda had a crush on way back in high school (she was still pretty smashing!) and she wanted to come over to my house to see my vegetable and rose gardens. I whipped up a pretty solid dinner and the two of us had a nice candlelight dinner on my porch. Lovely time, and the vibe was outstanding, but as things were kinda starting to possibly head down the road to sexytown, I started shivering, pouring sweat and turned white as a sheet. She sensed I was coming down with something, and we decided to call it a night and she went home. Having blown another dumb chance to revisit the past, I decided to go to bed. When I pulled off my jeans, I realized what had happened.

My lower leg had ballooned to roughly double its size and felt like it was on fire. I immediately called my mother (who had thankfully just moved about five minutes away) and let her know I was going to the clinic. The doc took me back. He took one look at my leg which was now oozing, and said something to the effect of, “get the fuck outta here and go to the ER.” I called Ma again and had her stop by my house to pack me an overnight bag just in case and drove to the hospital.

I just rambled way too long, but long story short, as a result of my weight-loss surgery from a couple years previous, my guts failed to process any of the antibiotic pills, and my leg was MASSIVELY infected from the dog bite. The guy shot me full of an IV antibiotic and told me if I’d have waited until morning. I might’ve lost my leg. I had to go to a chemotherapy infusion center every day for the next week on my lunch break for a daily antibiotic regiment and had to keep an IV port in my elbow for the duration. Made teaching lessons very inconvenient. But that week really put a lot in perspective. The IV drugs worked and the infection cleared up. But I still have a dark purple spot on my calf four years later.

Bottom line. Don’t fuck around with a dog bite. Get your ass to the doctor!

Epilogue: That gal did not turn out to be the future Duchess LaCross, however we are still really good friends, and her little girl thinks of me as her Uncle Duke.

Sorry, that was way too long for a comment.