In the hospital.........
May. 10th, 2008 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osodecanelaI don't much like this end of the stethoscope.
In the wee hours of the morning I awoke from a fevered sleep to find my left arm red and hot. It appears my fever of yesterday was not the viral crud that's been making the rounds, but a recurrance of a cellulitis in my left arm.
I don't much like this end of the stethoscope.
In the wee hours of the morning I awoke from a fevered sleep to find my left arm red and hot. It appears my fever of yesterday was not the viral crud that's been making the rounds, but instead a recurrence of a cellulitis in my left arm.
10 years ago I got sick in a real hurry. Erysipelas swept through my left arm and landed me in the ICU on IV antibiotics. At the time I lost most of the skin on my forearm and on the back of that hand. It also took out my lymphatics in my left forearm and I've had lymphedema there ever since. It's also left me with a tendancy to get infections in that fluid, and this is the latest bout of that.
Once I got home last night, I fell into bed exhausted and slept from 9 until 2 am when the pain in my arm awoke me. I took some potent antibiotic I keep on hand in the house for just such an event (this is the 5th infection in this arm) and went back to sleep. I awoke again at 8, watched the morning news, took another dose of the meds, hopeful that they would prove to be enought and went back to sleep. My fever had broken in the night, so I was hopeful. When I awoke at half past 12, a re-assessment of my arm was not so good. Red, swollen and hot. Not good.
My friend Jan called just as I got out of bed and volunteered to take me into town. While on the road I tried two of the three local ID people who have been involved with me in the past, and had no success raising either of them. So, we headed to the ER of the hospital where I have practiced for the past 24 years and let them work their magic on my damaged wing. I'm now inpatient on IV vancomycin and clindamycin and just within the last 2 hours my arm is noticeably improved. (Say AMEN!)
Oana showed up with her Wireless air card, so I have so access to the net while I'm here, which is likely to be until the beginning of the week.
In the wee hours of the morning I awoke from a fevered sleep to find my left arm red and hot. It appears my fever of yesterday was not the viral crud that's been making the rounds, but a recurrance of a cellulitis in my left arm.
I don't much like this end of the stethoscope.
In the wee hours of the morning I awoke from a fevered sleep to find my left arm red and hot. It appears my fever of yesterday was not the viral crud that's been making the rounds, but instead a recurrence of a cellulitis in my left arm.
10 years ago I got sick in a real hurry. Erysipelas swept through my left arm and landed me in the ICU on IV antibiotics. At the time I lost most of the skin on my forearm and on the back of that hand. It also took out my lymphatics in my left forearm and I've had lymphedema there ever since. It's also left me with a tendancy to get infections in that fluid, and this is the latest bout of that.
Once I got home last night, I fell into bed exhausted and slept from 9 until 2 am when the pain in my arm awoke me. I took some potent antibiotic I keep on hand in the house for just such an event (this is the 5th infection in this arm) and went back to sleep. I awoke again at 8, watched the morning news, took another dose of the meds, hopeful that they would prove to be enought and went back to sleep. My fever had broken in the night, so I was hopeful. When I awoke at half past 12, a re-assessment of my arm was not so good. Red, swollen and hot. Not good.
My friend Jan called just as I got out of bed and volunteered to take me into town. While on the road I tried two of the three local ID people who have been involved with me in the past, and had no success raising either of them. So, we headed to the ER of the hospital where I have practiced for the past 24 years and let them work their magic on my damaged wing. I'm now inpatient on IV vancomycin and clindamycin and just within the last 2 hours my arm is noticeably improved. (Say AMEN!)
Oana showed up with her Wireless air card, so I have so access to the net while I'm here, which is likely to be until the beginning of the week.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 01:11 am (UTC)Get to feeling better....
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 02:25 am (UTC)Incidentally, you're not that far off of the mark with regards to some of my local colleagues. One of them was 4 hours post partum herself, when she got up out of her own recovery bed and went back across the hall into L&D to deliver one of her patients.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 02:44 am (UTC)My arm is improving by the hour.
This has been a day of odd sensations though. I now have a PICC line in, to get the antibiotics. In essence it's one very LONG IV line, entering my skin just above my right elbow and ending just above my heart in the superior vena cava. After almost 24 hours of the antibiotics via a peripheral IV which was pretty damned uncomfortable (it bloody burns!), the last two doses have been pain free. However, there's a sudden chill in the middle of my chest extending into my right arm, the moment the meds hit my bloodstream. It's the damndest sensation. Positively wierd.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 01:40 am (UTC)*happy thoughts of kicking bacterial butt*
Hope you're doing much better very soon.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 02:51 am (UTC)I'm supposed to be giving a lecture at Sonoma State to the MFT students Monday evening. This morning I thought that was probably going to be out of the question. Now, less than 12 hours later, I suspect I probably will be able to make it.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 02:34 am (UTC)Are you at Palm Drive?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 03:01 am (UTC)I'm at Sutter this time. You know, I never figured the first time I saw the inside of the new cath lab here, I would be on my back.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-11 06:04 am (UTC)OK, I said it. Now what?
*HUGS*