As I sat on the peak of Lone Mountain contemplating the view of downtown Las Vegas, it reminded me of the view of Phoenix from Piestewa Peak (Squaw Peak). I also felt a tingling in my left foot, which reminded me of a similar injury that occurred to me a number of years ago while I was at the Salt River near Mesa, Arizona.
It was one of those nice spring days when I thought it would be fun to drive the old Jeep out to the Salt River and play in the sand; but, unfortunately, the sand was very soft and I got stuck. And when you get stuck with a 4-wheel drive, you are really stuck!
After jacking up the vehicle several times and placing any debris that I could find in the area under the tires, I was about to make it back to a hard surface when a big green scorpion came out of the sand and stung me in the foot. My mind immediately flashed back to an old Marlon Brando western movie when Brando gets into a fight with some bad guys in a saloon and they tell him that he can go free if he can win at an arm wrestling match with their biggest, meanest bad guy. The only problem was that a scorpion was tied at each end of the table, so the looser was going to get stung by the scorpion and probably die. Of course Brando looses, gets stung by the scorpion, immediately goes into shock and falls unconscious to the floor. The bartender drags his limp body to the alley, where he is left to die. Fortunately, a friendly Indian maiden finds him, loads his body onto a donkey, and takes him to a secure place where she treats him with natural herbs until he recovers and he can go back take care of all of the bad guys.
My eyes immediately scanned the horizon for an Indian maiden that could save my life by treating me with natural herbs, but no one was in sight. Fortunately, I was able to get back in the vehicle and with enough debris under the tires I made it back to hard ground and then back home before I went into shock and expired.
As soon as I arrived home, I called the hospital and described what had happened. They asked me what the scorpion looked like that stung me, and after giving a detailed description of the deadly killer, I was surprised when the nurse told me I would live and I didn't even need to come into the Emergency Room. I was instructed to just elevate my foot, apply some ice packs, take two aspirin, and call back if I started having trouble breathing. After about an hour the small red lump where I was stung didn't get any bigger than a mosquito bite, so I decided that I was going to live and went swimming in the pool. .
Fast forward about 35 years! I wake up in the middle of the night and go downstairs to find something to eat, get stung in the foot by a small, light brown translucent scorpion, and then go back to bed. In the morning I wake up and realize my left leg is swollen and paralyzed below the knee. I can't even move my toes and the pain in my foot is extremely excruciating when I even try to touch my foot. I finally regain some movement in my foot but it is about three weeks before I can even put on a shoe. After hobbling around for about another five weeks I can now finally walk standing up, so I decided to take a short hike to see how my foot woild work going up and down hills. Thus, the trip up Lone Mountain. The foot seems to be getting better, so a longer hike is planned for the not too distant future. Stay tuned!
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