I accidentally almost killed myself after jumping off of a dock at the lake

Link to photos on r/medicalgore for anyone who's interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalGore/s/jSlil8JbWr

When I was 18, my boyfriend and I went to the lake pretty late at night. There was a group of kids about our age hanging out on the dock who invited us to hang with them. They had alcohol with them and everyone was taking shots, me included.

At some point everyone was getting off of the dock to get into the lake, and I was definitely feeling the shots. My boyfriend was already in the water, and I got the bright idea of jumping into the lake off of the edge of the dock. Ya know, like in the movies.

I did have enough brain to think twice about this decision, which is why I called out to my boyfriend, "Is the water deep?!"

He responded, "No! It is not deep!" But all I heard was "deep!" And without another thought, I cannonballed into the lake with as much force as I could.

Immediately, I knew I fucked up. I felt something on my knee, so I reached in the water to touch it, but to my god awful surprise, my finger tips were touching the inside of my fucking knee.

So, I did what any reasonable person would do in a situation like this. I floated on my back while yelling, "Help! Hospital! 911!" Until my boyfriend heard me and rushed me to the closest hospital.

Well, on any other Tuesday, the story would (hopefully) end there. Unfortunately for me, the ER doctor didn't take my knee injury seriously. They wiped the outside of my kneecap to clean it, stitched me up, and sent me home. I was specifically told "You'll be fine come tomorrow."

So tomorrow came. I could hardly take myself to the bathroom. My boyfriend (we lived together) kept telling me he thought something was wrong and pretty much begged me to go to the hospital, but I kept insisting I was fine. I mean, honestly, I had basically no pain in my knee. Physically, I felt fine, but I couldn't walk on it or move it at all, and looking back 5 years later, I don't think I was in my right head.

My mom's a nurse and works with my pcp, so she set me up with an appointment later that day. I was just wanting to apprise my boyfriend and relieve his anxieties about it, but we didn't even make it past the receptionist desk when we got there. My pcp's nurse took a single glance at my stitched up knee, which began oozing puss, and she turned us right back out of the door and said to go to the ER.

I'm not sure what I was thinking, but for some reason I just was not bothered and didn't feel like it was a big deal...To the point that after the doctor's office, we decided to stop at subway for lunch before going to the ER.

By the time we make it to the ER, there was so much puss that it was slowly dripping off of the top of my knee. Again, the receptionist at a (different) ER took a single glance at it and I was immediately rushed to a room. We were there for like 10 minutes before a doctor was telling me that I needed emergency surgery and they had no idea how deep the wound was or how bad the infection was.

I was kind of just looking at this doctor like he had 4 heads. I just asked him, "How long am I going to be here?" And he answers, "At least 5 days." I turned to look at my boyfriend with a face of fucking shock and horror, and he was looking right back at me with the exact same expression on his face.

So my boyfriend called my mom, who we couldn't get ahold of, while this doctor was injecting my knee with this giant ass needle and feeding me pain meds through an IV. It felt like a flash before I was on the operating table being put to sleep.

The surgery went okay. I found out the hard way that fetenyl makes me itchy as hell, and I guess some nurses had to restrain me because I was scratching my head so hard I was making myself bleed.

They said that "something" had gone through my knee, to the bone, and because lake water is obviously disgusting and it wasnt cleaned properly, it had gotten infected and the infection was spreading rapidly.

They had to cut the wound open to about double the size it originally was, and no sooner than I was being put in a room for the night, I was being told I needed another surgery the next day because they weren't able to get all of the infection out. I was told that if I had waited a couple of more hours to get to the hospital, I would have lost my leg, but even so, it still wasn't off the table, but they were going to do their damnest to save it. If I had waited another day or so, the infection would have killed me.

After the second surgery, I was out of it. Im not even sure how many days I was there. It all just blurs together, but I know I was sick as fuck, I had thrush from all of the antibiotics, I was in more pain than I was when I gave birth a few years later. I was on multiple pain meds that just couldn't give me any relief at all. I was so hungry but anything I ate, I'd throw right back up.

Anyway, I'm a stoner, so a few days later, my boyfriend snuck me in some edible honey that I put on a Graham cracker. That was the best I'd felt the entire stay. I was even able to get in a wheelchair and felt good enough to go outside for a minute.

So eventually I got to go home obviously, but had to have a IV picc line inserted, a home nurse who came a few times a week (mainly to care for the picc line) and was put on bedrest for 3 months, which meant I also had to give myself shots in the stomach like 2 or 3 times a day to keep my blood from clotting since I couldn't move, which resulted in so. Many. Fucking. Bruises. In that 3 months, I literally couldn't even enjoy a shower. My 18yr old boyfriend (bless his soul) would give me sponge baths in bed and we had a little toilet directly next to the bed that he would help me get to.

I spent the whole 3 months buying an abundance of sims game packs, like $500 worth of game packs, that I wasn't even really able to use because I couldn't control my pain levels well enough to focus on literally anything. I have no idea why I kept going back for more game packs, but I sure as shit did.

Oh, and that boyfriend is my husband now. I will never second guess his judgment again. If he tells me to go to the hospital, I go to the fucking hospital.

Okay, that's all.