Jared Eberwein: Bmx, you live, your learn.

“I hate to say it because it makes me feel gross, but for some reason I’ve recently started getting warts. Specifically on my hands, and I don’t know if this is the real reason of getting them. I do a lot of BMX shows and we give out TONS of high fives to a bunch of people, mostly kids. It’s sorta made me into a germaphobe haha. Anyways, I’ve had warts frozen off multiple times, it usually takes a few repeated sessions. Then they finally go away, I had one on my left hand, right at the base of my ring finger.

All of use who ride know we all get callus’ there, and mine started to callus over before I got it taken care of. I went to go see my dermatologist, she froze the problem area, and I would say she sprayed a little more aggressively then other places because of the callus. Typically every time I’ve had one frozen, it will blister up in a day or two. This callus spot however never did, just was tender for a couple days and then stopped.

Ten days after, my finger swelled up a little bit, just enough for me to notice that it was weird and different. It alarmed me but then went away the next day and I forgot about it. I had been riding like normal the whole time, my finger definitely hurt and bothered every time but was tolerable. Until about twenty days after I had it frozen, it was after a day of shows, my finger started swelling bad and very painful. I went to sleep that night and it woke me up early the next morning, so swollen it felt as if it was going to rip my skin. I had to go to the ER because I was like clearly there is something wrong. I get there, they do some blood work, run some tests.

After a couple hours of waiting, a doctor comes up to me and says, “well it’s infected for sure, and we’re going to have a hand specialist come talk to you”.  Sort of made me nervous, I felt as if it escalated real quick. The hand doctor came and spoke with me, and he said it’s a pretty concerning infection, but more importantly their area is the worry. The hand/finger, at the end of a limb/body doesn’t get as much circulation. They said they needed to keep me over night and pump me full of antibiotics via IV.

I just had to stay and wait it out, hoping it clears up. One night turned into two nights, it just seemed crazy how quickly that turned into something bad but could have been really bad. Finally started to see a change and noticed it getting better, I got to leave and continue with oral antibiotics. They summed it up to be cellulitis, and said no liquid was in my finger, just swollen flesh. I returned home, curious and still messing with my finger, I can see where the “head or root” of the wart would be. I picked at it, and actually broke it free, and boom, pus and blood started flowing out.

I was left with a disgusting hole in my hand/finger but felt instant relief as the liquid was out. I was sort of bummed on the doctors after that discovery of mine. I don’t know if I should have don’t that but, it definitely felt and progressed better after that. It became more tedious to take care of, but I felt was best. I just had to keep cleaning, squeezing crap out and covering. It sucked to deal with for a month, but I learned that the callus held in the frozen area and would let it blister and drain. Which turned into a big issue and headache to deal with, I learn my lesson with yet again another life experience…haha.”