The Stingray Story

Some of you asked about it and I promised to tell the stingray story if anyone asked so here goes:

Once upon a time in a land far far away...

Just kidding.

When I was finishing up my schooling at ASU in 2000 I went on a trip to Rocky Point Mexico with a group of friends.  While we were there we stayed at the beach side home of one of the friend's parents. (Names are not important in this story.)  One day, while at this beach side home, some of the guys and I decided to take a walk out to where the tide had gone out.  It went out pretty far but it was a nice walk in the cool damp sand getting to where the tide was.

We were walking along and talking, having a good time.  Suddenly I felt this pain in my ankle and thought that I had been pinched by a crab or something because I had before and it felt surprisingly familiar to me.  So I quickly pulled my leg out of what little water there was (just above ankle deep) and discovered that blood was pouring from my ankle.  At that point I realized that it was not a crab that had pinched me but something far more sinister and evil.  The guys that I was with said something along the lines of, "Well, we better get out of here before the sharks come and get you."  Then we proceeded to head back to the house, which seemed like a much longer walk this time around because of how much pain I was in.

That night, while I was writhing in pain that traveled up and down my leg all night and could not sleep, we realized that I had been stabbed in the ankle by a stingray.  When the tide goes out they burrow in the sand and shallow water and when stepped on they bring their pointy little tails up and stab whatever has just threatened them.

Unfortunately that is not the end of the story.

A couple of weeks later my ankle was still on the mend and there was a lump just below my ankle that began to itch, so I scratched.  Much to my chagrin I had, by scratching that itch, released the pocket of poison into my body.  My entire foot, ankle and leg swelled up to my mid thigh.  It was so bad that I couldn't put any of my shoes on my right foot, I had to borrow a vehicle that had an automatic transmission because I could not use my right leg to drive, (yes, I learned to drive with my left leg only) and when the swelling didn't go down I concluded that I had to go to Urgent Care.  While at Urgent Care they decided that I needed to get a shot and said shot needed to be in my rear end.  About a week or so later my leg was back to normal and I have been scared to death of stingrays since then.

Here are the photos I took of my cankle.  Enjoy!