Healing Power

The infection that sent me to Sturdy Hospital has healed up nicely enough.
I’m not positive how it happened. As I learned a full thirty days after discharge, the infection was a staph and strep combination, so it did come from me and not something I stepped in.
Prior to the infection, I had a minor cut on top of the toe, which I had picked at a week or so before. Also in that timeframe, I had pulled away the looser dead skin of a callous, as I’ve done a couple times a year for the past couple decades. So the infection would seem to be my fault, even though those two suspects did not seem to get actively involved in the major problem.
Think of the toe as a throwing die, with six sides, one of which is attached to the foot. The top cut was on a second side, and the callous on a third. Somehow, in events beyond my power to imagine, a small cut appeared on the side of the toe that was protected and sheltered by the adjoining toe. That side also did not seem to be a problem. The last two sides, the toe tip and the bottom, harbored the problem.
The Charcot foot allowed the problem by reducing circulation. I think it also caused the abrasion-type wound that developed on the tip. The foot had been massively swelled again, which made my shoe too small, which allowed a friction burn to rub on the tip. This area had the worst of the infection. The bottom soon afflicted with dry gangrene.
My podiatrist had seen the stagnant cut on the top of the foot and had prescribed an antibiotic cream. As I can’t really see my own feet in any detail, my roommate had been putting that on. Good thing, as that was the only reason that anyone who could see my foot was looking at it regularly. The =abrasion and infection and gangrene developed in two days. Things looked a little red that Wednesday; the bottom of the foot was gangrened Friday.
If it had gone on longer, the infection would most likely have penetrated to the bone and I probably would have lost the toe.
Many different antibiotics went through the IV at the hospital that weekend. I was prescribed Augmentin , a combination of amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium. The amoxicillin is a derivative of penicillin. The clavulanate potassium is one of those things that fights antibiotic resistance. I felt no side effects from the antibiotic, but luckily also never have been prone to such problems.
More than a month after the prescription ran out, things are going well. The podiatrist sees me every couple weeks and cuts away excess dead skin. The toenail is growing back nicely, and the dry form of gangrene never spread. The podiatrist has a visiting nurse coming for eight weeks after discharge, just to make sure trained (and working) eyes were on the healing wound a couple days a week. I went along with this as patiently as I can but look forward to this being the last week. I find the visit intrusive, and the question of when my last bowel movement seem more personal and intrusive than necessary. The nurse is also pretty humorless. He gave no discernable reaction when I answered the regular question "Any problems with your urine?" with "It’s been talking back and skipping school."