Sunday, 9/9/12

I did not go into the hospital because of the drug reaction, but because I had an abscess.  Becky has been delicate about talking about it in her posts because it was on my butt. This turns out to be a terrible place for an abscess. Of course I was unable to sit, but you also use your gluteal muscles to stand, and do pretty much everything. Additionally, that area is loaded with nerve endings, so my pain scale rating on a scale of 1-10 was "Too bad for numbers".

Waldo County Hospital shipped me down to Midcoast (which seems to be their default solution). I was somewhat surprised that they did not feel like they could lance an abscess. It makes me wonder what they do there. Mostly outpatient stuff I guess. So they gave me an antibiotic that gave me a unpleasant reaction - swelling in the face, rash, and chills - and sent me on my way. I arrived at Midcoast in MUCH worse shape than I arrived at Waldo County Hospital, but to be fair, no-one knew at the time that was the antibiotic that I reacted to.

The surgeon, Dr. Kelly, came in today and lanced my abscess at about 2pm, and I immediately felt better. Just having the pressure relieved on those tender nerves made all the difference. I slept for a couple hours, and now I am up and about. My pain level is "I think I just need a bandaid". I can sit as long as I use a cushion, so that makes life a lot easier. Despite all those paintings of the Romans, it is hard to eat when you are laying down. 

The abscess, is stuffed with an antibiotic ribbon that pokes out of my skin, so that the skin will not heal first. You want the abscess to heal from the bottom up. Tomorrow, they are going to take that out and repack it with a more long-term ribbon, and I will have to be careful of it for about two weeks while it heals completely. I don't want to go through this again. I hope to be released tomorrow, but it might be Tuesday. It just depends on how that area is healing up.