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If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you no doubt have seen my adventures with #NippleFoot this week.

If you don’t, well, I’ll start at the beginning. Well, the beginning is Dec. 18, 2005, but we’re going to start at a more recent beginning and then flash back on that.

Last week, Barry and I went camping at Disney World. We didn’t have a whole lot of interest in the theme parks themselves, but we had a few things going on in the area and the campground seemed like a great place to give the new RV a proper shakedown.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we did an eco-tour on the St. Johns River. It was a birthday gift from Barry, and a relaxing ride with a guide who really leaned into the gators. He also fed some owls. While it was amazing to see barred owls so close, I’m conflicted about the practice.

 

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Wednesday

On Wednesday I had an appointment to talk to Eric Schmidt, the botanical records specialist at Leu Gardens. See, when he’d come on the podcast, he mentioned the Gardens had a few Torreya taxifolia specimens. I’m well into my tree-and-plant phase of life. So much so that my next book has a chapter about the Torreya and I jumped at the chance to see these trees.

Why? They’re well out of their historic range and, unlike most instances of this (that I know of), this exception isn’t somewhere north. Torreya taxifolia grows in the Florida panhandle — specifically, Gadsden, Liberty, and Jackson counties. Leu Botanical Gardens is several hours south, in Orlando.

The specimens here, though, looked so much better than the ones at Torreya State Park, for myriad reasons. Alongside Eric, I clambered over vines, through dirt, and in between trees to marvel at these amazing specimens. I’ll post separately on these trees, but I tell you this much so y’all can understand why I was so excited to see these trees and so willing to climb through anything to get to them.

This is also why my legs — even now — are covered in bites. So what was one more?

Thursday: NippleFoot Begins

Back at the campsite, I notice what I’m certain is a juvenile orchard orb weaver in Calypso’s bike basket. I attempt to relocate her but she does that spider thing where she shoots down a strand of her own silk and disappears.

Or did she?

I go into the camper and proceed to start hanging things on the wall, organizing, and all the little things that need to make the RV a proper home. I put on socks because my feet are filthy and I don’t want to get the floors dirty.

About 10 minutes in, I feel a poke on the bottom of my right foot. You know how you sometimes don’t really apply logic to your explanation of what’s happening? Yup, that’s what I did. I told myself it was probably a sandspur. About 20 minutes later, when it felt as though that sandspur was poking me repeatedly, I realized I was nowhere near the beach and it probably wasn’t a sandspur.

When I took off my sock, I had a red welt. I’m 90% certain that little green-bellied spider got inside my sock. She probably bit me because I kept stepping on her.

The next morning, I had a fair amount of pain. By the time we packed up the RV and drove home, my foot was angry.

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I did do a telehealth and sent a photo. The doctor insisted it was a tick bite (it was not) and prescribed an antibiotic. By the end of the day, my foot throbbed when I put any weight on it, so I sat around, reading, with my foot up.

NippleFoot and the Internet

The internet was not convinced I was OK. A few friends dropped me PMs and asked me if I’d accidentally put my nipple on Instagram. That’s about when I started calling the whole thing NippleFoot.

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But then I started getting texts from friends who’ve known me a long time. See, they remember StingrayGate. That was the time in 2005 when I stepped on a baby stingray, it stung me, and I resisted going to the doctor until it became grotesque. Uninsured (bless you, President Obama) I ended up at an Urgent Care the week between Christmas and New Year’s, getting a gentle scolding about an infection line that may or may not have been setting its sights on my heart.

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“Cathy, I’m starting to have stringray flashbacks from this thing on your foot,” Shelly texted me (after, I should mention, a pelican bit her and she had a wound of her own). “Have you been to a doctor?”

The Doctor. Well, Doctors.

Other than telehealth, no. But at this point it looks much worse.

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I didn’t make a doctor’s appointment. Not right away. I had an appointment with my OB/GYN Monday morning, so when we were done, I asked her if she thought my foot required medical attention. She said she wasn’t sure and that maybe I should go to an urgent care. When she found out I had a vet appointment for Elmo (one of our cats), she said, “Actually, ask your vet. They see lots of bites. She probably won’t treat you for legal reasons, but I’d trust her judgment.”

So yes, my OB/GYN sent me to my vet for a spider bite. My vet agreed with me that it was a spider bite and said there was a chance the bite would need debriding, but then said instead of an urgent care I should go to a dermatologist.

Which I did.

Sad ending for everyone invested thus far: no debridement. It was not a brown recluse (as someone suggested) and it was not infected. The doctor — who seemed one part amused, one part bemused at my “OB/GYN to vet to him” route to medical care — said to continue the antibiotic and pick up a gel he called into my pharmacy but otherwise don’t worry about it. He started to examine my other bites until I said, “Hey, I wander around outside a lot; don’t worry about those.”

And, sadly — for everyone but me, it seems — NippleFoot is, indeed, healing. But, as I wrote on the final NippleFoot Insta post, don’t worry. I wander around outside a lot. Something else will bite me.

I promise.