Happy 2011!
I rang in the new year watching old movies, drinking wine, and eating good food. After the exciting break I had, I was ready for a little bit of down time!
At the very beginning of break, the last day of finals actually, I got two bug bites on my wrist, and one on my upper arm. By about 3:00, when I was leaving work, they had swollen so much that they were distorting the shape of my arm. Plus, they were extremely painful. I’d had bug bites that bad before, but the pain level was off the charts. By the time I got home I was in tears, and Leo took me to the ER. They looked at my arm, gave me Vicodin and an antibiotics prescription, and discharged me. By this time, I had a red line going up my arm into my armpit and pain in my lymph node there.
The next day, the pain was better (obvs, yay Vicodin!) but the arm was still extremely swollen and the red line was still there. At around 8 at night, my body temperature went through the floor, and I couldn’t quit shaking. So Leo put me in the car and drove me to the ER again.
We got to hear the head doctor chewing out a bunch of people in the hall. Apparently they should have run some tests on me the first night, because now they had no idea what was wrong with me. So they drew a ton of blood, and stuck me on two IVs. I don’t remember what the first one was, but the second was Vancomycin, which is hard-core, and made my head itch like crazy.
Luckily, as the IVs went in, we could see the swelling and the red line going down. After about 4 hours, a doctor drew a marker line around the red areas and then discharged me.
It was the first time I’ve ever had IVs, or actually had to sit in a hospital bed. Leo was fabulous, and he was the only reason I wasn’t totally freaking out.
So…break not as relaxing as I would have liked. But at least it didn’t happen during finals!
Learning to Live 