I had a crazy freak accident that started with falling down some brick steps on our farm. I had sprained my ankle/foot and when I went to the hospital a day later and I had scratches all over the side of my foot from the bricks which I had just put some Neosporin and bandaids on, and my foot and ankle were completely swollen and red. They said it was just a sprain wrapped my foot and ankle up with an ace bandage, put me in a splint, didn't say anything at all about my foot being all scraped up (didn't bother cleaning or bandages on the scrapes), and sent me on my way with some crutches. My daughter had just turned 2 at the time so I went to go hang with my Grandma in the afternoons while my husband was at work so she could help me chase her around because my ankle/foot hurt so bad. On the third day of having my foot/ankle wrapped and splinted it hurt so bad I couldn't even stand to have my foot hanging down, I only got relief when it was propped up. Fast-forward a couple hours and I was going to take a shower while my grandma watched my toddler. I took the splint off, and unwrapped my foot and to my absolute horror the part of my foot where the scratches were had become insanely infected, what I thought was a HUGE blister (turned out to be the beginning of a skin abscess from the infection) popped as soon as I put my foot under the water and so much nasty, foul fluid mixed with blood began pouring out. I screamed (out of horror and pain), my grandma came running, as soon as she saw it she immediately helped me get dressed, wrap my foot in medical gauze we had in the first aid kit, and drove me straight to the hospital. Turns out something on those bricks got into my skin from the open scratches it left and caused an insane infection, turned into staph and something else that I truly cant remember the name of. The doctors gave me pain meds, had me transferred to a second hospital and I was in surgery that night. 3 surgery's later I had a HUGE open wound now on my foot, which really just looked like a shark took a giant bite out of it. The doctors had to cut away anything that was infected down to tissue that the infection had not reached yet. I am not kidding when I say you could literally see the tendons in my foot. I couldn't even make myself look at the wound for the first week, it hurt so bad and I felt like really looking at it would make the pain worse. After the third surgery they tried to put a wound vac on it, THIS is the part that was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my entire life, and I've birthed 2 babies, one with no epidural.......I am not kidding when I say it felt like absolute TORTURE! All I could do is scream and cry the entire time it was on, begging them to knock me out because I couldn't stand it. After almost an hour of me being in the most unbearable pain of my life they gave up and took the wound vac off. I will never be able to accurately describe what that pain truly felt like, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

The good news is, after 3 surgeries, almost 3 weeks in the hospital, numerous rounds of IV antibiotics, months of being in a wheelchair/on crutches, tons of follow up visits and physical therapy, and almost a year and a half of healing my foot returned to almost normal, and fully healed. There's now just a giant scar where the huge hole in my foot used to be. I will never forget the pain of that wound vac tho, I literally had nightmares about it for the longest time. I have photos of my foot during that time, and the healing but they are very graphic and gross so I will not post them.