What's the most serious illness or injury you've experienced?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I had something that didn't feel that bad but was apparently very serious.

So I had a small sore near my elbow. There was a little piece of skin that was bothering me around the sore, so I picked at it, use tweezers, etc., and the damn piece of skin wouldn't tear off. In the process, I made the wound a bit bigger (but it was still really small). It got a bit itchy, but at first it wasn't a big deal.

Anyway, it got extremely infected and swelled up. For a day or so, it was extremely painful, but eventually the swelling went down. What happened, though, is that my blood got infected. From my elbow to about a third of the way up my forearm, a vein leading directly from under the sore turned bright red.

I went to the see my doctor and had to have four doses of antibiotics a day. Apparently if I'd waited any longer to see him, this thing could've been life-threatening and I might have been talking about losing my arm. All from picking at a cut. It was kind of a scary thing to hear.