Riley and Holli helped me out of the water and over to the lifeguard station, where i described it to the lifeguard. He said it was a sting-ray, he'd been stung before too. He gave me a hot-pack, which looked like the gelly ice packs you put in the freezer. Theres beads in it and you squish em and they get all hot. By then it was hurting REALY bad. An older lifeguard came over and explained everything to me and said it would be one of the most painful experiences of my lifetime. He put me in the lifeguard truck and we went over to the headquarters underneath the pier and i had to put my foot in a bucket of hot water. He said the pain would shoot up and down for a couple hours. Meanwhile, some hot lifeguard was doing pushups on the floor..yessss... but anyways.
Then Holli pulled the car up to take me home. On the ride home, we played snow patrol, our band, holli was having road-rage, and it was still hurting. She gave me Ibuprofen and it started to go down a bit. I was starting to fall asleep, with Holli stiiill talking and trying to make me feel better, i'm sure i just kept saying "..uh-huh , ya , sure.." When i woke up, Holli had leaned the seat back for me and Tyson came and took me back home. He was funny on the ride home, teasing me.
Mom and Dad left me to go out on a date! rude. So i sat on the couch on the computer talking to Cassandra, who was freaking out, not being able to get ahold of me. She was frantically telling me everything she had researched about the stings and was sad she couldnt take care of me like when i hatchet-ed my toe at the family reunion (she fed me berry starburst and M&Ms as i got stitches).
She said that sting rays have barbs at the tip, and its a protein-based poison which is somewhat deactivated by heat. And it eventually turns to gelly and oozes out of the wound. You have to keep it really clean or it could get infected and people lose limbs from not going to the hospital for infections. She was going crazy. It was sweet. someone loves me..
..picture of the sting on my heel.
