Driving home from yesterday's family social event I got one of those "you better do something about that" feelings.
Southern Belle noticed my puncture wound from the far corner of the deck. Belladonna (who is now an RN) said "That looks angry" and asked for details. She drew an outline around the red goose-egg and said "If that gets ANY worse in the next 24 hours, go to the ER."
Posts written by fellow bloggers and some of my commentors tipped me toward taking action. Waltzing into an Emergency Room at 7:05PM on Saturday is much better than slumping your way in at 1:45AM Sunday morning after the bars close. It can be surreal in May because some of the trauma victims on Sunday morning are young people still wearing prom dresses and tuxes.
I was lucky. I walked through the doors five minutes after shift change. The receptionist took my info and in the time it took me to select a place to sit down in the waiting area I was called back into the Emergency Room.
The staff was caffeinated, unbothered, moisturized, happy, in their lane, focused and flourishing. Blood pressure, pulse, temperatures were taken in about two minutes. Bekah (my nurse) did NOT like my blood pressure.
Nobody said "You are in the wrong place." In fact, Bekah assured me that "Boring is good" and "The Emergency Room staff love boring problems."
I saw the doctor within five minutes. He did a quick ultrasound looking for chunks of stick still in the wound. Then he ordered an X-ray looking for the same.
A tetanus booster in my left shoulder. A whacking big dose of an antibiotic through an IV. A packet of oral antibiotics because the local pharmacy doesn't open until 10AM on Sunday.
I was out in 90 minutes with instructions to come back if the goose-egg grew any more than 1/4", if it became painful, if I ran a fever, if red streaks started radiating toward my armpit or if my armpit became painful. Sometimes the broad-spectrum antibiotic bounces off of the bacteria that are causing the infection and they need to add an antibiotic from a different class.
Bacterial toxic shock is not something to screw around with. Sometimes the difference between a boring, local infection and a way-too-exciting systemic infection is just a couple of hours.
A big thumbs-up to the Emergency Room Staff at Eaton Rapids Medical Center with special thanks to Bekah, Dr Ryan Jones and Keisha (sp?) the X-Ray tech. I hope the entire shift was as boring as I was.
Also a thumbs-up to blogger Reltny McFee and commentor Michael. Your blog posts and comments get read and they make a difference.
You will be in our prayers today. ---ken
ReplyDeleteThank-you. I appreciate that.
DeleteFred in Texas, antibiotics were a game changer for life expectancy. In a grid down situation, lots of people gonna die from infection. The medical industry has abused their gatekeeper status with regard to medication. I don't know how to make penicillin but I would like to.
ReplyDeleteAfter WWII ('47, to be exact), life expectancy went up by 5 years (from ~62 to 67) in one year after penicillin was released to the general public. That's when Social Security was shown to be the scam it was. With men living past retirement, benefits suddenly had to be paid en masse and money became a real problem for the Feds. The only other time life expectancy jumped like that was after the Surgeon General's report on smoking came and and people started quitting.
DeletePS If you've ever seen the movie The Horse Soldiers, when Bill Holden applies tree moss to Bing Russell's leg, that's natural penicillin
Read “The Alchemy of Air” by Thomas Hager if you want to find out what allowed this planet to go beyond 4B people. Fascinating read which provides a new “perspective”. Sitting right next to Uncle Tungsten.
DeleteMF
Glad it was boring ER.
Prayers up ERJ.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out yesterday, we were talking post graduation about an incident years ago where Nighean Dhonn had a cat bite which had the same progression - red marks, pen circle, shot, and anti-biotics. It really is no joke - and as noted above, will go poorly when such things are no longer available.
You should commemorate the characters and events in a work of short fiction? Hint: it HAS been a spell....
ReplyDeleteNon-peak hours at the ER or Urgent Care make all the difference in the world. Follow doctor and nurses instructions to the letter and and save yourself the lectures from family members. Best O luck!
ReplyDeleteGlad you listened on ALL counts. And yes, ERs can get you in and out in a timely fashion.
ReplyDeleteSomething that might be infected should be soaked in a saturated solution of Epsom salt, as hot as you can stand it.
ReplyDeletePart of the after-care is to apply hot compresses four times a day. The Doc said DRY compresses were preferred.
DeleteChecking on the internet, warm/hot compresses improve circulation. That is relevant because a puncture wound can fill with a gel that has no blood supply and antibiotics are not great at penetrating that lump of goo. The warm/hot compress improves capillary flow and slightly increases rate-of-diffusion into the pocket of goo.
glad you didn't stay in de nial until your boat sank... awsome response from Eaton rapids E/R. Hope there are no serious aftereffects
ReplyDelete