How was surfing yesterday?! How quickly my mind forgets. But maybe the five drinks to numb the pain also numbed my brain. Ah yes. Surfing was painful. Literally. Lex graduated to a hard top and we were shredding (obvi) when I got off my board after a ride and was pulling it in to me when I got bit or hit or attacked by (perhaps?) a scorpion stuck in my bootie. I didn't know WHAT it was but it f#$*ing KILLED! And it moved in the bootie so I thought maybe it was a crab stuck in there?! I dropped into the water and tried to pull off my bootie but was in SO MUCH pain. I didn't find anything in it but hobbled to shore and was looking for Bill to wave him in. I sat on my board, holding my foot as it started bleeding and was clenching back tears but by the time Bill got to me the tears won and I was convulsing in sobs between showing him and explaining what happened. It was a sting ray and I have the hole in my ankle and bootie to prove it. No es bueno.
So Alexis and Bill carried me to the car and I squeezed my leg to try to manually tourniquet it so the poison wouldn't spread. Apparently the only salve is hot water -- like boiling hot -- which you need to submerge the sting in for TWO hours. The heat changes the chemical composition of the poison so that it is no longer a venom. So that's where the drinking came in :) Between the pain of the venom and the boiling hot water I was glad to numb my mind. Gracias Flor de Cana.
And today I'm as fit as a fiddle! I kinda wish there was bruising or something bad ass to prove it but we must have acted fast enough or it must have been small enough. The booties were a real savior because, as it was, it went through the thick part of the bootie and STILL left a gash and many tears. Bill said it was "part of the Nicaraguan experience". If a scorpion sting is the next badge of honor to obtain the full experience then I'd rather not know the real deal.