So as far as urban legends go . . .
I knew this girl, well, actually she was a friend of my mom’s. Her name was Darla and she was going to be this prima ballerina. She danced all through school and actually danced in the local production of The Nutcracker. Sure, she started out at as dancing tea cup, but eventually she got to dance the role of Clara. She was ecstatic.
Well, there was this guy, I think Mom said his name was Nathan. At any rate, he was working behind the scenes at the local ballet company. He was a gopher in the wardrobe department. He fell in love with Darla but she wouldn’t give him the time of day.
One day, at rehearsal, Darla noticed that her left big toe was really starting to itch. She had a tough time making it through the more difficult numbers. The itch was a total distraction. She also noticed that her heart was beating very slowly. She blew off the pulse thing.
Apparently, the night of the show, Darla couldn’t dance the part because her toe (and the rest of her foot) had swollen so much, she couldn’t fit into the shoes. The understudy had to carry on while Darla sulked backstage. Nathan tried to comfort her, but to no avail. He called her a fox and even remarked that he treated her shoes like they were gloves for the feet of Cinderella.
Darla eventually had to be seen in the emergency department of our local hospital for her unusually slow pulse. They did all kind of tests and found she had been poisoned with Foxglove. She connected the dots back to Nathan and calculated that he had put foxglove in her ballet shoes.
The doctor said this was to be taken seriously. Darla almost died. Apparently, she had digit-talus poisoning . . .