The Crab’s Revenge

Usually, I don't like to eat crab legs. It is way too much work. I'm much more a lobster tail kind of person, or if the crab meat is already outside of the shell, I'm in (crab ravioli, crabcake, etc). Well, on June 27 my mom went and ordered a crab platter at Bob Chinn's that came with a variety of crab legs, so of course I had to help. As I was cutting one chunky chubby crab leg with the provided utensil, I noticed some red on my appetizer plate. That's strange, I thought. The crab is rare? Then I realized it wasn't crab blood. It was mine.

I grabbed a paper towel… and then another… and then another to try to press my fingertip cut closed, but the blood kept coming. Then our entrees arrived, and after a few more minutes I gave up and went to the bathroom, rinsed my finger and threw away my crumpled out bloody towel, and got a bandaid from the host stand which I wrapped tightly enough so that the skin flap over the cut would close the wound enough to staunch the bleeding. I had to give it to the crab- it defended itself from me even when it was just a leg.

My finger stung a little for that day. All this last week I dutifully wrapped my finger tip with a bandaid snugly enough so that my wound could heal. After a week had passed since the crab defensive maneuver, I started to notice my finger was a little itchy- the sticky part of the bandaid was a little stuck on my finger even after I peeled off the bandaid, and I scratched at it to rub it off. I thought it was the adhesive gunk that was irritating my finger.

Then when I stopped wearing the bandaid this past holiday weekend, I noticed the top third of my finger was still itchy. Weird, the residue must still be there even though I didn't see it. I rubbed it now and then, but didn't feel anything. Weird. Then, I started to see little bumps. Oh oh.

Then yesterday, not only did I see lots of flesh colored bumps (almost like… a crab shell has bumps…), but the bumps and itchiness were spreading from the inside of my finger to the outside by my nail, and it was tender and a little swollen on that side. It even throbbed a little on that side.

I took some pictures and asked my sister, the pediatrician, what she thought. She stepped up my guess of some sort of fungus from too much wet band-aid to offer the hypothesis of a parasitic infection. I mentioned it to my mom (my dad was on call so unavailable) and after suggested maybe my finger was just dry and I needed lotion (no! that's not it mom!) she suggested tetanus. Ok… So off to the doctor I went today to learn the fate of my ring finger tip.

After she pressed and poked at my finger, she pronounced that since it was not red, not hard, and felt normal except for looking at it, that I was allergic to latex. Steroid cream for me! But don't touch your eye dear, or you'll get glaucoma!

Yes crab, I have learned my lesson. I will not eat you.