I know, I know, enough with the boil already, right?

Believe me, I'm way more sick of the boil saga than you are. If I hear any complaints, I'm totally putting pictures up, I swear. As it turns out, Lloyd has a similar affliction. He had been working on the floor, and had chafed his left leg, which subsequently grew a nasty looking little boil. He had a fever and his whole leg was red. Mine, on the other hand, was much improved, if still ugly.

The other day, I went out for a leisurely 'run' and by 'run', I mean I panted and gasped around the block a few times, feeling virtuous and athletic. The second I walked in the door, I was practically assaulted with this:

Lloyd: I'm going down to the ER at the base. You should go too. Let's go together.
Me: What?! I'm not going down there! My boil is getting better, I already popped it. You go.
Lloyd: It will be a good chance to spend some time together.
Me: Get off my case. I'm not wasting a half a day down there for nothing.
Lloyd: Fine. Don't come crying to me when you die of sepsis. Goodbye.
Me: Well, don't be so pissy about it. What do you care?

You can see what happened, right? Between them, Lloyd and my mother bullied me into going down there to the ER at the closest base. All the way, I was fuming, hating myself for letting him push me into something I didn't want to do, sure that the trip was useful for him but pointless for me. Except for all that quality time together, of course.

So down we went, blowing an entire afternoon. I was SO SURE they were going to tell me my boil was healing fine and I should go home. And guess what? Lloyd and my mother were right, can you believe it? That almost NEVER happens!

They shot me full of crap and sliced a giant hole in me so they could scoop out this nasty old crinkly mass of goo, about the size of an apricot pit, leaving a depression the size of small plum. Then they hosed out the hole and shoved a bunch of shoelace-like packing in there, and told me I had to come back EVERY DAY to get it repacked until it heals from the inside out. Otherwise it will heal over the pocket and I'll have a big dimple there. Then they gave me some hard-core painkillers and some enormous blue-green antibiotics that I have to choke down for TEN DAYS. Lloyd got a similar treatment, only his boil was much more petite than mine and his wound is far less hideous. I know it sounds super freaky that we both got boils at the same time, but apparently they are super common, and can pop up out of nowhere, for no obvious reason, and get huge really fast, and it's actually no more than a mild coincidence that we had one at the same time. The medic said that they see about fifteen cases every day, frequently on soldiers where their backpack straps rub, or on belt lines.

The next day we dutifully trotted down there to get repacked and blew another entire morning enjoyed some more couple time. Luckily, the healing is going nicely and we were overjoyed to find out that now we can jam big wads of string into our brand new body cavities all by ourselves. This, as you might imagine, is vile beyond words, making me wonder if I should have gone with the sepsis. Or the souvenir divot. It's still not too late!