This last incident actually reminds me of two other
incidents, though in some ways I have done better than in the past.
Being unemployed (and uninsured) has definitely been
part of the problem. I suppose I should have gotten insurance through the
health exchange by now, but there is this limbo to being unemployed. If you get
a job soon there could be insurance again; maybe you just need to hold on a
little bit longer. I have been keeping up-to-date on all of my medications, but
I have been putting off doctor visits, until I couldn't.
I guess it's about five weeks ago now, but I stepped
on something. It hurt and I saw a small hole in my foot, so there was no
question that I had stepped on something, but I couldn't see anything protruding
or under the skin.
As a diabetic, I need to be careful with my feet.
It's really more that if neuropathy sets in I might do something to my foot and
not know, and that's not what was happening here, but it's still a sensitive
area. I soaked my foot in warm water and Epsom salts, and then I kept doing that.
Sometimes the soaking made my foot felt a lot
better, but then it would hurt again. I still couldn't find proof that anything
was in there, but I couldn't quite be sure there wasn't anything in there
either. If there was, I kept hoping the next soak would draw it out. This is a
sound strategy, but not implemented over three weeks, which is what I did. I
did think about going to the doctor, but I was worried I would have to be
referred to someone else, and the bills would pile up. Then I got sick.
It started in with flu symptoms (aches and chills) on
a Wednesday night. I was reading about the Influenza of 1918, and considered
that it was psychosomatic, but I was still reading some of the history leading
up to it, without really having gotten into symptoms yet. Thursday I pretty
much alternated between sleeping and resting, then Thursday night it started to
settle into my leg.
Okay, I have had this happen before, but almost
always in my right leg, where the rebar had cut me. This time was on the left;
the same side as the injured foot. It was no longer possible to avoid the doctor.
I did debate going to Urgent Care. My last
cellulitis outbreak was actually before my current doctor, and it would be so
much closer and possibly cheaper. However, I trust my doctor, and that tipped
the scales. I wanted to be with her.
We got right to the point, and she agreed that the
foot was connected and moved me to another room with a large magnifying glass
for checking it out. She couldn't quite get it either, so she called in a
colleague. This was necessary, but is a second bill. Still, he was able to do
what needed to be done.
Now, if what you have is a small splinter, soaking
your foot might work, but my failure to get it out made perfect sense when I
saw the jagged, 1/2 cm piece of glass he pulled out of my foot. Epsom salts
were never going to move that; it required a professional with heavy
magnification digging around while I tried really hard not to struggle and make
things harder. (I did eventually have to stamp the other foot near the end.)
The cellulitis itself calls for antibiotics, and it
is not unusual to start with an internal dose, which had previously been a shot.
This time they sent me down to the infusion lab in the cancer center. That is
another bill.
Those things are important, and I have a lot of
financial aid forms to fill out now, but the overwhelming impression from all
of it is how much the answer was to keep still. There was Thursday's rest, but
also a lot of waiting on Friday. I was instructed to lie back and take a power
nap after the glass was out as they wrote up orders and arranged the infusion.
At the infusion clinic there was a wait for the medicine to come, and then be prepared,
but I was in a comfortable chair and they brought me a drink and crackers. Then
there were the orders to lay low, and to stay out of the sun while I was on the
antibiotics.
I was too tired to fight these instructions anyway,
but that just reminded me how necessary they were. Now that is much better but
a cold has settled in, probably because my immune system did get so low. Okay,
take it easy. Do something, and then rest.
That can't go on forever, but there are times when
it is necessary.
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