Several months ago, I think in the beginning of August, I stepped on an old nail. It didn't hurt, I didn't even notice it, but boy did it bleed for a little. It was one of those things that happen. We took down the walls to the second bedroom so we could have a massive living room and one of the nails must've still been about. These things happen, especially to me.

Long story short. It got infected.

Three days after Nail-gate I noticed my foot swelling and getting red. Knowing that it wasn't a good thing, I went to the doctor and said "Doctor, my foot is swelling and turning red. A few days ago I stepped on a nail and now this is happening." The doctor looked at my foot. Now when I say looked, I mean looked. As in she tilted her head so her eyes could see my foot and that it had 5 toes and was red and was swollen. She didn't touch the foot. She didn't look at the part of the foot that got all punctury and infected, she just glanced at the foot and identified that the part connected to my ankle was ,in fact, a foot.

She prescribed water pills. She also prescribed Flomax to keep my from going to the bathroom too often (another on going problem) and told me to come back in 2 weeks.

Two weeks go by. Foot is bigger. Foot is more red. Doctor office calls the day before my appointment to confirm, but then calls day of appointment to cancel and asks if I could call and schedule when the new month hits. (September).

A few days later my foot is warning light red and I'm in agony. Doctor says I can come the next day as a walk in.

I go in. Me and my red flashing foot. The infection and pain is so bad that I'm having coughing fits. My doctor isn't there, this is a dude doctor. He glances at my foot too. I tell him how much pain I'm in, how much it hurts He looks up my symptoms on Web MD and tells me I have con-genitive heart failure. He also prescribes me robotusin and orders chest x-rays because I guess the foot my be connected to a rib and the song was wrong the whole time.

Two days later I'm in the hospital. Hospital looks at my foot and says "Wow, that's really infected, you got cellulitus."

They admit me, put me on IV antibiotics and proceed to torture me by placing me in a bad that makes noise. I stay three days and leave on oral antibiotics. The foot gets a bit better.

After I am off the antibiotics. The infection is back. I go back to the doctor, get two more rounds of antibiotics, and am then sent to an infectious disease doctor. They give me a picc line. I have that in my for three weeks before it get accidentally pulled out. In the meantime I'm supposed to get a CT scan. First it takes over a month to get approved for the PICC line. Then they keep messing up the CT scan. First, they send me to a place that can't deal with my size (i'm a fat elephant) then they send me to a place that doesn't take my insurance, then they send me back to the first place that can't deal with my size. Then they schedule me at the hospital but no one ever bothered to tell me. Then my insurance ran out for the year.

In the new year, I switched to another insurance, one that didn't make the specialist go through my primary care doctor to get approval. It didn't kick in until february. Then it took 2 weeks to get an appointment with my doctor. Then it took a month to get an appointment with the specialist. So finally, I get to drive an hour out of my way to get an MRI to see what is going on with my foot. Doctor said it's something more than an infection because all the antibiotics would have killed that long ago. I think I'm destined to lose the foot. I think it's a quick 20 lb weight loss.