Fish fin poke gone bad.
 

Was admitted to Bethesda Wed for an infected fish fin poke. Today they had to operate on it to literally scoop out the infection. Basically cut hole in my palm and a hole in the tip of the finger and ran a pipe cleaner through it to clean it out. I will be in here until at least Monday on IV antibiotics to kill the rest of it.

Wear gloves and don't let it go as far as I did.

Another ic.

Man, that doesn't sound fun at all. Sorry to hear and see that.

I know I got a pair of those fish off gloves around here somewhere....

Tawn; sorry to see those pictures. Damn glad you got back to the hospital in time. When I said it was a fast acting organism, I meant fast:eek: Hang in there buddy.
The only other thing I can think of, is you might ask the Bethesda Doctor to do a consult with a Union Memorial hand specialist (nobody better in our area then Union Memorial Hand Center)
Was it confirmed as Vibrio?
5th (Marty)

The culture hasn't came back yet .... When the meds wear off, I think this is gonna hurt!

The thing that looks like a piece of penne pasta is actually a drain tube sewn in to my hand.

Ok, now I am looking for the gloves to add to the fishing yard sales I am about to have! :eek: That looks like it is REALLY gonna hurt when the meds wear off.
So the rest of us don't find ourselves in there next you, can you share a few more details? (Understand you might have a tough time typing right now so short and sweet works great). Main question is - when we're you "attacked"? How long did it take to go from normal to nasty?? :D

A charter capt buddy of mine always wipes down with hand sanitizer immediately if poked. Seems to work for him or he's just gotten lucky to not have had an infected fish stick him maybe...

Please excuse typos ....typing with one finger. On my phone, under the influence of Percocet!

We had trips Thu, Fri, Sat & Sun last week so my hands were fairly nicked and cut up headed into Sunday morning. We did the usual, go catch spot , live line for Rockfish and then perch fish after we limited out on Rockfish. When spot fidhing I usually wear one of those rubber palmed gloves on my left hand for unhooking the inevitable small perch and/or croaker. I cut about 1/4" off the thumb and index finger so I can still bait spot hooks with the glove on. Well Sunday, we weren't really catching anything but spot so I ended up taking the glove off. The spot were coming in pretty quick and when a customer hauled up a small perch, I didn't take the time to put my glove on and you guessed it, I got stuck. At the time it didn't seem any worse than the thousands of other times we have all been stuck ... I didn't stop and wash it and continued baiting hooks and taking fish off hooks.

When I got home that afternoon my hands were pretty beat up after four days straight but no worse than normal.

By Monday my left index finger and thumb hurt worse than normal. ... I inspected them for any fins broken off in the skin, couldn't find any and soaked the hand in Epsom Salt (according to my mom, that cures everything).

By Tuesday morning, the finger & thumb was swollen to the point it was "hard", discolored and painful to bend. I got in to sick call and was given 800 mg Spectra antibiotics to take twice a day.

The oral antibiotic had no effect and by Wednesday afternoon the affected area was purple, hot to the touch and hard as a rock and spreading.

I went to the AAFB ER, they immediately transferred me to Bethesda. They admitted me and began IV antibiotics and made two incisions to relieve the pressure. By Saturday morning not enough headway was being made on getting rid of the infection so the put me under and operated on the finger & thumb.

Basically what they did was open it up enough they could scrub the inside of my finger. Then they put in drainage tubes and left the incisions open so "they can heal from the inside out". I am still receiving IV antibiotics and have been told I will have to remain hospitalized until al least Monday evening.

My lesson learned is that I wil never again get in such a hurry that I will attempt to unhook multiple small croaker & perch without a glove. I will also make the time to thoroughly clean any and all fish fin & hook puncture wounds immediately.

Jesus!!:eek: That's a scary thought considering how many of us just "grab and go" when it comes to taking fish off. I think I will go dig those gloves out 'cause that doesn't look like fun.
A little later today, I will raise my glass to wishing you a speedy recovery! :p

Actually quite impressive! Please avoid operating heavy equipment though :D

The most humbling part of this entire ordeal is being at Bethesda with a fishing related injury when everywhere you look are kids missing limb(s) and other horrible combat related injuries. It really puts my minor inconvience in perspective!

Looks terrible, but I know it will provide a good lesson for many of us...Guess the guys won't give me as much of a hard time for wearing gloves anymore...

I know its gotta be hard to see all the folks there that have come back with injuries that are so hard to see, but on the positive side, they made it back home and will get to see their friends and families again....In the end, that is what is really important....

Get better !

Drain holes.. Must heal from the inside out. No stitches to close them up.

Does Grundens Make the gloves the guys on Deasliest Catch wear. Seriously, if the stand up to commercial crab work, surely they would work on the Bay.

In about two weeks; that hand is going to feel much better with a cold beer in it:D

If it has to heal from the inside out; the alcohol (beer) should help:eek:

So sorry to see that hand in that condition.

5th (Marty)

So what you are saying is - If I go fishing they'll give me Percocet ? :D

Seriously - thank you for posting , think we'll all be more careful.

When you heal up - stop in Marty's. Jim has a gift from me to you - hopefully help prevent this from happening to you again.

Thanks for posting and hope you have a speedy recovery.
I love the FISH OFF gloves and have a couple pair velcroed around the boat for easy access. I still however grab a fish bare handed from time to time and will re-think that after this post.

Dang Tawn that's tough. Thanks for sharing. Obviously we all need to be more careful.....................Mark

dang
 

Hope all goes well. I am paranoid about that crap, ever since wino talked about it years ago.

in cold wx I always wear thin gloves and grab the leader and use a dehooker to flip the rock.

fri we were LL with spot. i did not have gloves on and got pricked by a spot fin. put on the liquid disinfectent a couple times. and oinmt at home for the two days. looks ok. don't know if spot can do it to you, but don't want to find out.

not LL without gloves on again.
good luck. ron

Tawn, Thanks for sharing online. Even though my son had to have surgery to have an infected lymphnode from swimming in the bay removed about 5 years ago, I still get careless about fish handling. Your infection appears to be very fast growing. (my sons was very very slow growing). Your story will have me be more careful!

I hope you get better soon!

Holy crap Tawn, I wish you a speedy recovery. It sure makes me rethink about using gloves.

bhl (Bruce)

I hope your wife/girlfriend/significant other/life partner treats you to an extra great "old fashioned" while the hand is recovering. :D

I had big suregery on my paw a few years ago and I remember what a change it was to do things one handed or with my weak hand. It's amazing the simple things we take for granted.

How Freaky is that, I am sitting here at my desk looking at my scraped, gouged and fish pricked hands after fishing on Sunday. No redness or swelling, the thumb hurts where it got sliced and another slice that took the skin with it, but they seem to be healing well.
I have to remember to use a rag or a glove because I can't afford to be down and out for a week or more.
Good Luck and wishing a speedy recovery for you. Thanks for keeping us posted.
Tight Lines,
John

Was discharged today. The paperwork says it was a "MSSA" infection...no kidding "MSSA". I asked for a translation and was told it was a type of Staph Infection.

On a more humorous note; I received this from the crew at the Happy Harbor in Deale. Is my hospitalization hurting their bottom line that bad or do they just miss my wit and charm. LOL?!

Thanks for all the well wishes - I'm' going take it easy for awhile, the Doc told me to wait 4-6 weeks before I even thinking about fishing again. Surely he wasn't serious?

Mrsa
 

Hi Tawn:

Are you sure it wasn't a MRSA infection? It stands for Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. It is a type of staph infection that is not killed by penicillin-types.
The really bad part about them is that they can hang around in or on your body and reoccur later.

I went and rechecked the discharge paperwork.

Under Hospital Course, it states "CULTURES FROM INITIAL PROCEDURES GREW MSSA"

Now if subsequent cultures grew something else, it wasn't annotated in the paperwork.

Tawn, glad you're home. At least you know it was a Staph infection. With you or the sidelines for 4-6 weeks, maybe John and I can catch some fish:D. I saw you potential Diamond Jim in the Bay Weekly with Capt. Shawn (like he had anything to do with it):eek: We mates never get credit:rolleyes:

Goin Fishin
5th

Wow Tawn. I'm sorry to hear about this. I'm glad they were able to figure it out and treat it. That's quite an ordeal you went through. I hope you get well soon and back out on the water.

i know exactly how you feel. i got cut by a piece of metal and it got infected. the hospital opened it back up ad they put the same packing inside the wound