That scratch on my leg may look innocuous now but earlier
today it was life threatening. I felt
the sharp sting when I walked back into the café to collect our coffees and
looked down to see these neat, double marks. I assumed that it was just an
insect bite since I had not really seen anything near my leg. However, the
caring lady behind the counter had other ideas: “Those look like puncture
wounds and best not take any chances”
Then all the other ladies behind the counter joined in, reeling
off the symptoms that could soon appear and of course, I immediately began to sense them.
Except I soon felt a fraud and started to claim
“Englishman’s Wimp”. But they were having none of it. I was told to sit down as
the ladies took me under their wing – although, adopting a different approach, the
manager meanwhile appeared to phone his corporate head office, possibly to
alert their insurance company.
When the lady returned 15 minutes later I still felt fine and
now less stressed. “Taken this just in case” she said, handing me the roll of bandage
“and if you take a turn for the worse then wrap the wound tightly, apply a tourniquet
to the lower leg and go straight to hospital”.
As you will have guessed, I am still alive. With hindsight I
believe it probably was a snake bite but, as someone who has lain awake at
night believing that the pain in my back was likely terminal, only to have
fought off the disease by morning, we men are used to overcoming such adversity.
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