The Catfish Story

We have gotten a lot of questions about this whole catfish fiasco, so I figured that while I wait in the outpatient surgery waiting room, I would fill everyone in.  It all started last Friday when I was at work and I got a panicked call from Chris saying that he got hurt by a catfish and needed me to meet him at the hospital ER.  As most of you know, this is no my first go the the ER call that I have had since dating Chris (the jack hammer experience).  I, still a beginner fisher, have no idea what harm a catfish can do, but Chris sounded bad so I rush to the ER.  Thankfully Debbie, Chris' co-worker, decided to stay late and was able to drive him to the hospital.  Once I get to the hospital, Chris tells me the story of how this even happens.  Chris went with some of the guys from work to play mini-golf and on his way back, he noticed that the tide appeared to be perfect for cast netting.  So he grabs his net and a bucket and heads to the dock to get some shrimp.  This is the first time he has ever decided to cast on his own, since he just learned how to cast a cast net.  I had just taught him how to cast net and crab in the last few months, that right a yankee taught the southerner the art of cast netting.  He casted his net a few times and was "pulling in a lot of shrimp" and also so other small fishes.  In his net, he also caught a few small sea catfish.  He kicked a few off of the dock and then went on to collect the shrimp that he intended to be our dinner.  As he reached down to pick up a shrimp, he accidentally stepped on one catfish that he missed when he was kicking them off the dock.  As soon as he stepped on it, the catfish fin barb jabbed him in the side of the big toe.

Here is a picture of our not so fun friend the Sea Catfish

 

He was only on the dock with a bucket and a net and couldn't get the catfish off of him.  He had to wait until a boat came to the dock to borrow some pliers to cut the fin off of the fish, so he wouldn't have to take the whole catfish to the ER.  Sea Catfish barb are poisonous and very painful.  I would have never guessed this, but when your husband is that guy screaming in the ER room in pain, you know it has to be bad.  I was thankful that Debbie was able to get him to the hospital fast and that they nurses got him back to a room quickly (we quickly realized that they got him back to a room so quickly, because all of the ER staff thought it was "so cool"to have a catfish fin hanging out of the side of your toe...not so much for Chris.  In walks the ER doctor, which we will refer to him as Doogie Howser, because he was all of 20 year old and entered the room by saying (in a surfer/stoner voice) dude that's cool!!  It all went downhill from there.  Doogie dug and cut and dug some more to get the barb out but just ended up breaking it off deeper inside his toe.  He then said I don't think I got all of it, so you may want to go see a doctor on Monday. They cleaned the wound with some tap water and a washcloth and gave him an antibiotic and a few pain meds and sent us on our way.  Let's just say Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday were rough. Thankfully, we go to church with some amazing people and one of those people is Dr. Beth Fletcher, who agreed on Sunday, to take care of Chris at 7:00 a.m. Monday morning.  She was fantastic!!  She had spent Sunday evening doing research on sea catfish, their barbs, and how to treat for them.  She cleaned his wound out, tried to find and remove as much of the barb as she could, gave him stronger pain meds (since the hospital ones were not working), another antibiotic and wanted to see him back on Wednesday. So he spent the next few days laid up on the couch with me cleaning the area 3 times a day because catfish are seriously one of the most disgusting, dirty, and gross animals on the planet.  As most of you know, I hate feet and Chris will tell you that he knows I love him because I have cleaned his toe so many times in the last few days.  Honestly, I have to pretend it is a finger to make it happen, but I have made it happen.   On Wednesday, we went back to see Beth and thought this would be the end of our crazy catfish journey.  NO SO MUCH!  When she looked at the wound again, she noticed something really small and sent us for x-rays immediately.  She requested the results STAT!  Which I know they say STAT on all of those TV shows and it sounds cool, but when you are carrying doctor's instructions with STAT on it, you know it is not good.  A few hours later, the doctor's office called and said we needed to go to the foot orthopedics surgeons office immediately, they were waiting on us.  Thankfully, we know this orthopedic doctor pretty well since he had done my first surgery on my left ankle, he handled Chris' foot when he dropped the jack hammer on his foot, and now this.  He is a good doctor and after more x-rays we were scheduled for surgery on Friday to remove the barb.  So here I sit waiting for Chris to get out of surgery. 

It is really weird to be on this side of the surgery, since I've always been on the cutting side of things.  It's hard to believe that I could have married someone just as or more accident prone than myself, but it happened.  Chris swears that he became more accident prone since he met me, but I tend not to believe that.  I say that because if you have ever heard his mother talk about Chris' short lived Olympic diving career you would believe he has always been this way.  At the age of 2 or 3 he was watching the Olympic divers on TV and decided he was going to do become a diver and he was going to use the bathtub as his training pool.  Needless to say, all his training was going well until his head hit the faucet and he had to get stitches.  Diving career...over.

Just got called back to talk to the surgeon, Chris' surgery went well and he is in recovery.  The surgeon removed another inch of barb out of his foot.  That is crazy since the ER doctor removed about a half inch already.  The surgeon said he had to make a larger incision that he expected and Chris will be really sore, but he will make a full recovery.  Thank the Lord!!

The lesson of this story is that Catfish are no joke and very dangerous!  We will be staying away from them for a long time.