Ghastly
I never knew insect bites could cause such a raucous. Surely, a tiny bug couldn’t send me to the hospital, my surprise location just hours after the 2nd birthday of my oldest son?
The party went well enough. Presents were liberally scattered on my next of kin. Kind gifts of clothes were tossed aside in favor of an eye catching toy or ten. In between bits of shared joy and appreciation (both him and his parents were treated very, very well), my thoughts traveled to an apparent insect bite on my right thigh. What had once been a little bump was now something closer to a wound, having grown in both size and color. It hurt. I took the advice of a close friend and registered nurse, both one in the same. Hours later, I was staring at the business end of a scalpel.
It all started about two days earlier. As I said, I didn’t think much of it. I can’t tell you when or how I got it. I remember initially mistaking it for acne at one point. There was an attempted popping – never a treat on the soft skin of my outer thigh – but then it faded from memory. On Friday, however, it surfaced (or resurfaced depending on the timing of said popping). My bite wasn’t so tiny anymore. Pain was mixed with its growing shape.
On Saturday, I knew something was up. I worried about infection. I phoned my doctor. No response from the on-call clown. I phoned my soon-to-be ex-doctor a second time. Again, no response was forthcoming. Then the party happened. My leg hurt but there was a house to clean and prepare. I muscled through, successfully ignoring the pain. Somehow, the source of my irritation came up in casual conversation. A room full of people, most of them relatives, ensured that I never stopped fielding questions about my little injury.
(Those that are faint of heart, may want to cover their eyes at this point in my story.)
Shortly after the party, a kind friend volunteered to look at my wound. I believe my wife made the initial request. I’m unsure I could have asked her to do the dirty deed. My wound had grown nasty. It was bright red and hard. It had formed a nice little blister before the party. That blister was no longer a problem. It was ghastly. I suppose it isn’t good party policy to invite your friends to inspect nasty things but that’s exactly what I did. My surrogate doctor sent me to the hospital.
I arrived at the hospital not knowing what to expect, beyond a long wait. The emergency room was full of people. I settled down with a book to find myself in Triage about 5 minutes later. The physician’s assistant took a look and mentioned something about a possible recluse spider bite (I have since, through a little internet researching, begun to very much doubt this theory. Do your own searching at your own risk.). The doctor came in and ordered it opened and drained. I kind of expected the draining part. I didn’t expect, however, the cutting portion of the procedure. While waiting for them to return with their instruments of death, I couldn’t help but my liken my experience to an episode of ER. You know how they are always laying that cloth down on folks with the big hole in it? That was going to be me!
(During my wait, I was visited by some curious colleagues of my direct medical staff. Oh yeah. Guess who was the topic of the day at the hospital water cooler. Please hide your jealousy.)
To be honest, the hospital visit wasn’t that bad. The staff was nice and everything happened much too fast for me to properly react to it. I’m getting surgery? It’s almost done. I’m getting blood drawn? Hey, you are pretty good at that. I’m getting a tetanus shot? That’s nothing! Get out of here and get your prescriptions filled.
(Cover your eyes. I warned you!)
Since then I’ve been spending a lot of time with warm compresses to both drain the wound and control the swelling. I redress the wound a two or three times a day. Today, I’m crumbling to public demand as I offer a picture. Here’s my wound as of yesterday. Get your stomach contents cleaned up. I’ll wait.
Today, the pus in the middle is gone, leaving something akin to a bullet wound that is still very much getting care. I hope to one day entertain my children with my stories of ‘Nam. Maybe I’ll respond to the media’s incessant insistence that video games cause violence by claiming that I played Halo 2 so much that this is was the result. Regardless, I’m pretty hopeful that my stories will be of recovery. I find that to be a good thing.
Earlier today, I called my dad, who recently had lung surgery to scrape pneumonia from its surface. He spent a large percentage of December in the hospital with a tube draining fluid from his lungs. He spent the last week recovering from his surgery and attempting to do simple things, like eat. He’s been home for all of two days. His first words? “How are you feeling?”
Well, it could be worse.
dad
January 10th, 2005 at 4:59 pm #
been home 7 days–have home care nurse–plus shirley–in a good bid of pain while lugs ribs and muscles go back in place and heal—starting to eat better—cannot and will not take any chance of new attack–wanted to see the family–sorry—take care of your injury
love dad wootton
feed the dog and the cat