Wow.

Sorry to have left you all hanging.

I stayed home from the hospital for ALMOST 36 hours.  Almost.

When I was readmitted, my temp had gone from 96.8 when I was discharged to 103.9 when I showed up back in the emergency room.  Seven degrees doesn't matter much in weather but inside a human body, it's a really big deal.  Hot stuff. 

Okay, that was across the lame line.  But it made you either smirk or groan, right?

Reality is, I first mentioned my hand to a nurse at the end of December.  I had the fertility doctor check it on January 5th.

I made my first trip to urgent care on January 12th.  No labs were drawn and the only advice was "use lots of heat.  If it weren't for your leg, I'd say this wasn't infected at all.  But it looks similar to how that did, so I'm going to prescribe this particular antibiotic for you for seven days."  I dutifully soaked my hand many times a day, making sure to move it and use it and get it good and toasty.

Nine days later, on the 21st, I was back in the ER with a temp of 100.9 (normally run 96.5-96.8) and my hand looked... rough.  Bad.  Not so good.  Swollen and red and pretty sore.  I had thought I was getting the flu Wednesday night (24 hours after the last dose of antibiotics), and it proceeded to worsen along with the appearance of my hand.  That doctor said that since the first course of antibiotics worked so well (It did?  Really?  How'd I miss that?) he thought I must be one of those "rare people where seven days isn't long enough" and he was going to prescribe the exact same medicine, at the exact same dose, but this time for ten days.  He said that if the heat helped, I should continue it but it didn't really matter.

My husband and I both felt very uncomfortable with the hasty exam (more just a glance than actual exam), the lack of blood work, and the lack of follow up.  Especially since at that point my hand was acting exactly the same as my leg did last year - and the doctor was acting exactly the same as the doctors did last year.  We kept insisting we were uncomfortable and the doctor got more and more irritated, until he finally offered a referral to the wound clinic.  We knew that the 48 hours until I'd be able to see them (if seen immediately) could see things go south really quickly, but at least we also knew that the wound clinic is home to a bunch of very smart, talented, experienced infectious disease doctors and surgeons.

Wound clinic called Monday morning, offering me an appointment less than 30 minutes later.  It's a 40 minute trip in this weather, minimum.  I asked for a later appointment and was put off until the next afternoon.  That night, I did not sleep.  I used heat, I tried ice, I tried compression, I took Advil, I took Zofran, I took Vicodin 7.5 (two of them).  I finally fell asleep at 7:30 A.M.  I slept until noon, and when I woke up I knew I would be admitted.  For what started out as a simple skin infection of the hand, and even Friday night, could have been handled on an outpatient basis if it had been done correctly.  But now my hand was so swollen that it looked fake.  The skin was shiny and tight and deep, dark red.  It was very hot to touch, and I could no longer move my pinkie, ring, or middle fingers.  The pinkie and outside edge of the ring finger were numb.  And I felt generally sick.  Achy, sweats, chills, fever jumping between 99 and 102.9, unable to keep anything down.  I packed some books and clean underwear and socks and a stocking cap along with my favorite pillow, and off I went to the wound clinic.  My appointment was at 2 PM, my blood was drawn and x-rays taken by 2:30, husband got there at 3:00 just in time to watch the orthopedics consult jab an insanely large, thick needle into my hand in an effort to "aspirate" the pus.  By 4:00 I was getting settled into my room and waiting for IV therapy to come get things started.  After five days of high-dose Rocephin and Vancomyacin, with a Fentanyl PCA pump and frequent IV Zofran, I was sent home with Bactrim, Vicodin, Zofran, and Neurontin for the pain in my now-damaged nerves.  I'd been seen by infectious disease, orthopedics, plain internal medicine, neurology, OT and PT, an intensivist, and about a million interns and 500,000 residents. 

I was thrilled to be going home.  Finally, healing and doing well.

I lasted from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning.

When I was readmitted, my hand was blowing back up, I now had no sensation or reflexes below the wrist in my ulnar nerve and limited sensation and reflexes in the others, and my temperature went from 101 when we left home to 103.9 when the admitting nurse took my temperature. 

More Vancomyacin and Rocephin, more Vicodin ans Neurontin, more days on the Fentanyl PCA pump, More Zofran, more doctors, and an operation to remove the abscessed vein (yes, apparently a not-quite-sterile blood draw can lead to the development of not only phlebitis and cellulitis, but also abscesses inside of your veins) and the necrotic (i.e. dead) tissue that was around it, and I was sent home.  After finding out that the infection I was fighting was directly linked with human saliva.  Eeeeewwww.  There is only one person who could have introduced the germs, and that is the technician who drew my blood in December when all of this started.  I was actually asked this past week, by one of the infectious disease doctors, if this infection was self-inflicted.  Um... no flipping way. Besides, how would I have done it?  "Excuse me, Ms. Lab Tech person, before you stab my hand with that needle, would you mind letting me lick it first?"  Seems unlikely.

Now here I am, halfway through February and two months out from the original offending blood draw, and I am struggling hard to stay out of the hospital.  Three admissions might just send me over the deep end.  Well, not so much the admissions... it's the need for the admissions and the fact that this can all be traced to one person and the fact that we aren't ever going to even be apologized to for any of it, plus the fact that I have long-term, likely permanent, damage and loss of function in a previously healthy hand.

I know, I'll let go of the anger and sadness, and I will learn ways of making my hand do what I need it to do, but right now, tonight, I am so very ticked.