Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

So, as I’m flying home from Milwaukee Friday night, I notice that a scratch on my elbow that I’d been serially re-opening for a few days is suddenly swollen and sore.  Since I’d slept for a while on the MKE-MSP leg of the trip, I wondered if I’d whacked it against the arm rest, as we’d flown through some turbulence.

Saturday morning, I inspect the arm and muscles near the elbow are swollen and sore, and there are red patches spreading around the arm.  I ask Mrs. Perils for a second opinion, and she hauls me out of bed and sends me off to Urgent Care at our provider.

There, I learn that it’s a bacterial infection called cellulitis (thought that would happen on my thighs before my arms).  They told gave sold me a fistful of sulfa tablets and told me to come back if it spread beyond some GoogleMap-ish dotted lines they’d drawn around the red spots.

5 hours and two sulfa tablets later, I note that it has spread, and I’m feeling a little feverish, so back I go (stand in line, sign more releases, explain, explain).  This time, they call an infectious disease specialist, and come back with fistfuls of needles.  The doc wants to plunge his into my elbow to extract a sample for testing.  The nurse (nice woman, but still with the needles) is there to plunge an IV into my other arm and drip a dose of antibiotic so I’ll get a faster hit.  They give sell me a different antibiotic prescription, and tell me to come back in 24 hours for another IV if it looks necessary.  I have the option of having the IV removed, with the possibility of having to be stuck again on Sunday (I get the whim-whams about having needles stuck in my veins).  I opted to leave it in, and spent Sunday a little queasy about the thing just hanging off my arm.  No pain from that, but my elbow was on fire from the sample extraction.

I hustle from the ER to SeaTac to pick up my Mom, who was arriving from Detroit and, fortuitously for me, if not for her, an hour late.

I sleep well and wake Sunday feeling awfully good.  Some red spotches have disappeared, and my fever is gone.  I head up to the Urgent Care again and we look at the thing under good light, and it seems to have spread a little in other areas.  So, another IV hit and instructions to come back the next day.  I tell them I’m flying to Medford at 1pm for a week, and that it’s all paid for and much of it is non-refundable.  They say they open at 7am - come in then for one more IV hit for the road.

I’m hoping to see some kind of turnaround in the morning.  I’m thinking I’m going anyway, and correspond with them as they get test results back and figure out exactly which bug we’re dealing with.  I’ll take both sets of pills, and play it by ear.

More from the road.