Tropical Ulcer

A sequel to “Jais: Paradise is Danger”


I woke in a cold sweat many nights to the terrible nightmare that I would awake to find my leg encased in coral, like this fellow to the right.
The coral that had scraped me at Jais now tried to grow inside of me. A pursuit that my team leader and I worked to thwart.
Lindy first told me to always keep it wet. (If you know anything about wound care, you know this is a stupid idea. Keep it dry is the rule of thumb. Bacteria likes the wet. Do not try these remedies in a non-tropical area!!) But in the tropics, keep it wet. With bleach evidently. For days, Lindy poured bleach into my open wound. Pain abounded.
But the efforts of the coral to encase me redoubled.
So we shifted our tactics accordingly. Lindy poured sugar into my open wound. (If you know anything about wound care, you know this is a stupid idea. No sugar is the rule of thumb. Bacteria likes sugar. Do not try these remedies in a non-tropical area!!)
But alas, this effort too was in vain, (although it didn’t hurt as much).
“Lindy,” I wailed, “I don’t want to amputate! Just throw me in the ocean! I’ll just be part of the Great Coral Reef”
(Lindy literally poured sugar into my blood stream. It caused me to be a little hyperbolic.)

But Lindy had not written me off as dead yet and we tried something else.
We put wet gauze on my leg and waited until it dried and then peeled it off. The ulcer had morphed back into a common scrape. The battle against the coral had been won and there was much rejoicing.