Gross Factor

Before I continue any further let's take a look at the picture below shall we? Be warned ahead that it is not for the faint hearted or anybody with a delicate stomach, but if you're already in this page then you would already have unavoidably seen it so I pretty much don't really care anyway. So let's proceed shall we?



Was that a squeal I heard? Did you make a mess on your keyboard? Did you spontaneously lose control of your bowels or bladders? Perhaps you are still looking at the picture with morbid fascination. No, this is not yet another internet myth about someone who developed a pustule on his/her feet which later became painful and infected only to be carved up by doctors to reveal a nest of squirming insect larvae reminiscent of some sci-fi horror movie. These little horrors (maggots actually) were intentionally put into a diabetic foot wound to aid in the healing process, which by the way did not heal despite heavy usage of antibiotics. Actually make it plural, the owner of this heel, Pam Mitchell is her name, had 600 live maggots put into her left foot and 400 in her right for two days in a last ditch attempt to save her feet. It worked. The nasty looking critters normally associated with decay and corruption ate away the infected flesh and Pam's feet were soon on the way to recovery.

Gross.

The method is apparently an old one, which was put out of fashion in the advent of modern medicine. To me maggots tend to evoke some rather foul memories. My long since deceased dog was once lost for three days before my brother eventually located her and she had several maggots tunneling in her nasal cavity which took my brother several drastic measures, which I will not elaborate, to remove. I think she never really recovered from the ordeal though she lived for a year more before my mom decided she was just suffering too much. I also remembered once encountering a white terrier like stray on the street. A rather friendly fellow, but much to my horror, I discovered it had several of those horrid critters eating away at its anus. I was pretty much horrified and helpless. Being too young then to know the options of helping the little pooch, which in any case would have been pointless because knowing small town vets, they would just have optioned for putting it to sleep. I think I carried the guilt for a long while for doing nothing. I never saw the stray again. It also left me wondering as to why anyone could just abandon their pet to such a fate.

Foul memories aside, I do acknowledge the usefulness of these... things. Though I wonder if I ever come to such a desperate need for such treatment would I actually allow it, even if the other option means losing a couple of limbs. Squirming larvae in my feet... the thought of it already makes me queesy.