Dog Eats Man's Toe and Saves His Life 207
Have you ever been so drunk that you passed out and your dog ate your toe? I haven't either, but luckily for Michigander Jerry Douthett, he has. It turns out Jerry has type 2 diabetes and a wound on his toe had becoming dangerously infected. After a night of drinking Jerry passed out in his chair and the family dog Kiko decided to do a little doggy doctoring. From the article: "'The toe was gone,' said Douthett. 'He ate it. I mean, he must have eaten it, because we couldn't find it anywhere else in the house. I look down, there's blood all over, and my toe is gone.' [Douthett's wife] Rosee, 40, rushed her husband to the hospital where she's a gerontology nurse — Spectrum Health's Blodgett Campus. Kiko had gnawed to a point below the nail-line. When tests revealed an infection to the bone, doctors amputated what was left of the toe."
How drunk do you need to be... (Score:1, Insightful)
gerentology nurse? (Score:4, Insightful)
What am I reading again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Hungry dog saves man's life by eating a toe.
Wow.
No, not really. How much do you have to drink to pass out so badly that you don't feel your dog eating your toe?? I mean there could be several more plausible explanations than the one he came up with after waking up from his drunken stupor. At that kind of alcohol abuse, you can bet that the man has no idea what happened before he passed out. Besides, the man is a retard - he was urged to check for diabetes, but resisted "fearing the diagnosis" while his brother died of diabetes complications earlier! And he had this sliver in his toe and tried to remove it with a knife cutting away skin. Then when it got worse and started to both swell and SMELL, his solution was to use loose sandals instead of going to the doctor. Major fail. Oh, and his wife is a certified nurse.
Re:Obamacare (Score:1, Insightful)
Is that why they have Bo ? Is it a prototype for ER deployment or elder disposal.
Is what why what? Prototype?
I'm assuming you're with 90% of Americans who have some hard coded objection to treating people who make mistakes like human beings. So therefore I find you annoying. Or maybe you object to Obama's attempt to make the world's richest nation treat people who can't afford healthcare a little better.
Re:Sounds Like Maggot Treatment (Score:3, Insightful)
*Flush the wound repeatedly with sterile water or fresh urine to remove the maggots.
Might I just be the one to say "EWWWWWWWWWWW!"
Re:gerentology nurse? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some shitty nurses out there.
There are shitty husbands out there too. Honestly my wife never knows about my minor medical issues, if she did I'd never hear the end of it. Now I say shitty husbands because deception is a terrible way to deal with problems and I'd probably be better off if nothing was hidden.
Whats more this guy has diabetes, anyone with diabetes knows to take special care with any kind of wound or infection. He didn't take care of himself, how is that his wife's fault?
Re:Moron (Score:4, Insightful)
We were standing in line at the Starbucks one morning behind a woman with a diabetic wrist-band thingie and she ordered a Vente Mocha Frappuccino.
But then again, I've seen people so fat that they had to ride those little scooter/shopping cart things and it looked like they were buying one of everything in the frozen dessert case.
If you want to see why the US is headed toward total collapse, go look at the pictures on the "People of Wal-Mart" site.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
How much do you have to drink to pass out so badly that you don't feel your dog eating your toe?
How much diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage caused by diabetes) do you need before you can have a severe bone infection without noticing it? It's entirely possible that his toes are completely numb, especially after a night of drinking (which further screws with your blood sugar).
Besides that, his wife brought him home (you'd think she would have noticed if he were bleeding profusely) and the only blood in the house was on the bed where he was sleeping. I've got to say, their theory doesn't sound as far fetched to me as so many others seem to think it is.
As for the being too afraid to go to the doctor because you're worried you might be seriously ill... yeah that's retarded. "If I don't put a label on what my bodies doing them I'm not really sick." Yep, brilliant logic.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
How much do you have to drink to pass out so badly that you don't feel your dog eating your toe??
Maybe not much if the toe is rotting and the nerves are damaged by diabetes and infection.
Besides, the man is a retard - he was urged to check for diabetes, but resisted "fearing the diagnosis" while his brother died of diabetes complications earlier!
It's really easy to point to someone acting out of fear and say "That's irrational: that's stupid." All of us have procrastinated out of fear on smaller things than "You could die." It's a universal human failing, and very common when it comes to scary medical things. Yes he should have done many things different, but we don't know the full story.
Let's reserve terms like "retard" for people who aren't behaving irrationally out of fear for their lives.
Re:Moron (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never understood the whole bit about being afraid to go to the doctor to get a dianosis. It's not like you don't actually get the disease until the doctor tells you.
It's similar to girls who won't step on the scale for fear of seeing her weight. It ain't changing, scale or no.
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget that few people have decent health insurance, so it is understandable why some people would put it off, because of fear that it would result in complete loss of coverage, as well as bankruptcy, loss of job. In this economy, one bad injury or illness can get a person's family on the streets.
This may be one reason why he put it off so long. Regardless, it is tragic.
Re:wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds Like Maggot Treatment (Score:1, Insightful)
Might I just be the one to say "EWWWWWWWWWWW!"
Hey, this manual is talking about a situation where you've got an infected, festering wound, no antibiotics, and no chance to get to a doctor anytime soon. What's more, this manual (rightly) recommends letting friggin' MAGGOTS grow in the wound to disinfect it.
All that, and you're worried about something as innocent as peeing on the wound to remove the maggots? (And yes, fresh urine *is* sterile - it contains things the body wants to get rid of, so it's still not necessarily something you'll want to ingest, but you don't have to be worried about catching any bugs when you do. This is in stark contrast to feces, too, which DOES have various bacteria in it and should not be consumed. Not that most people would even want to, of course.)
Re:How drunk do you need to be... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've watched dogs eat, and they aren't exactly polite nor careful. That dog was probably yanking and biting. He would have noticed something if he wasn't out cold from the booze.
The dog didn't save him. He just smelled like rotting meat, which for some reason dogs like. We've all read reports where the owner died and the pets had no other source of food, so they went for the large but slightly rotting corpse.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
In a hostile environment, hiding illness or injury is a common strategy to avoid predation. In this case, the jackals would be health insurance companies.
When we prioritize providing decent healthcare over welfare for rich bankers, blowing up brown people and looking under people's clothes in the airport, we'll see less of this sort of thing.
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason he didn't feel his dog eating his toe is not just that he was drunk, but because diabetes causes peripheral neuropathy. When you have severe untreated diabetes, you often can't feel pain in your extremities, and untreated sores become gangrenous. So his being drunk was the least of his problems, his bigger problem was that his toe was decomposing and he couldn't feel it.
Yeah, but he could SMELL and see it - that might have been a clue that something's not right...