Current location:	On Borrowed Time
Current mood:	sick
Current music:	Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Reposting From Old LJ, May 2003

Gawl-darned gone and done it

[15 May 2003 | 11:42pm]
[ mood | exhausted ]
[ music | House of Love - Shine On ]

I was walking out of work tonight - actually, I was more like bounding - when I stepped off the curb into a wide and deep crack in the street: yup, my left ankle gave way. In fact, my foot seemed to turn at about a right angle to my leg. I got up off the street and hobbled across the street, and somehow made it the three blocks to my car.



Within a matter of a couple of minutes I could feel the left side of my ankle swelling to something between the size of a golf ball and a baseball. It seemed obvious I had either broken it or sprained it something horrid. And it seemed prudent to head for the Urgent Care at Riverside.

When I got there I decided to risk a parking ticket and parked my car in a one-hour spot about a block away. I hobbled in - without an appointment - and was told I could be seen in about a half hour.

After a few minutes in the waiting room I was shown to an exam room. When the nurse took my blood pressure it was extremely high: 190/100. (I was told it was probably due to the injury to my ankle.)

The nurse also asked me a bunch of questions about the general state of my health, basically the same questions I had answered yesterday in the same Urgent Care.

I have a Stye on my left eyelid that has been extremely swollen, so I had gone in yesterday evening to get some anti-biotics. If I'd known I'd be coming in today I could have saved the trip yesterday and gotten a too-fer tonight.

Anyway, after entering the data into the computer - the same info I'd given the nurse yesterday - I was told the doctor would see me shortly.

After about another 20 minutes the doctor appeared and examined me. He didn't think anything was broken but wanted an xray to be sure. So he had the nurse bring a wheelchair for me to go downstairs to the xray department.

Yet another half hour later, I was back in the exam room with the doctor, who declared I was lucky that I had not broken anything. He told me I had a bad sprain and that I would be on crutches for a couple of weeks and that it would be another month before I would walk without a limp. The nurse wrapped my ankle in an ace bandage and brought me some crutches - and off I hobbled into the night. (I knew I should have doing better working out my upper-body; those cruches are hard on the arms!)

I guess the good news is that when I got to my car I had been parked in the one-hour spot for nearly two hours and hadn't gotten a ticket. (What a relief, he said, somewhat sarcastically!)

The other good thing, I suppose, is that now that my ankle hurts like Hades, I barely notice the pain in my eyelid from the stye. Yay!

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Well, well, well...

[18 May 2003 | 11:04pm ]
[ mood | sick ]
[ music | John Lennon - Working Class Hero ]

A story about three holes in the ground. (Yeah, it's an old joke but someone's got to keep it alive.)

It's Sunday night and I'm still not up to going into work tomorrow. Although the swelling is down, my foot is discolored and a bit puffy. I can stand on it, but it really hurts and the crutches are hurting my hands and arms. And it doesn't help that I'm coming down with both a head cold AND the stomach flu. Geez, I'm a mess!

I actually get two more days off, since I already took Tuesday off for another medical appointment: I'm getting fitted for my CPAP machine. I've finally been officially diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, the Sleep Apnea Gurus are coming out to the house on Tuesday to set me up. Maybe I'll finally get a good night's sleep.

Fortunately I don't often take off sick time - certainly not when I'm not actually sick, like some - so I have over 450 hours of Sick Leave accrued at work. I consider it a kind of bank account, since it's there for illnesses AND I get to cash it in if I leave.

Anyway, I'm calling in sick tomorrow.

I cancelled the cable TV several years ago and I kind of miss it on days when I'm sick or injured, like today. But it's not that bad, really.

When I decided to cancel, I taped about 50 hours of the Discovery Channel and the History Channel. And I occasionally have my brother tape MTV or VH1 for me. So, all weekend long I've been watching footage of how the Pharoahs built the pyramids and Missy Elliot videos and Behind the Music.

Speaking of which, why hasn't MTV changed it's name? There are hardly any music videos on anymore, only lame game shows and silly stuff like Cribs. (Do they still have Undressed on? Migawd, that was a lame show?)

And when they do show videos (in the middle of the night), they show the same ones, over and over and over - Christina, Justin, Jay-Z, Missy Elliot, White Stripes, rinse, repeat - and then cram twice the commercials than their broadcast network cousins carry into each break.

Well, I'm glad I'm watching it on tape, 'cause I can at least fast-forward through the endless parade of shills for zit medicine, fast cars, beer and tampons. I guess I'm just not in their demographic. But I still l like the videos...
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Sigh...

[ 25 May 2003 | 12:46am ]
[ mood | worried ]
[ music | The Beatles - In My Life ]

Last entry was the chronicle of how I sprained my ankle. If only that were the end of it. It seems the nasty stye in my left eye - that has now reproduced itself in my right one, as well - contributed its virulent bacteria to my bloodstream, which in turn pooled in my ankle when I sprained it.

The upshot: massive infection has set into my already-bruised ankle.

I stayed home all this past week from work, resting and hoping to be well on the road to recovery by the weekend. At mid-week it seemed things were not progressing as they should have, so I went into the clinic to see the doctor; not the easiest thing on crutches, but the clinic nurse thought I should be seen.

It had been six days since my little accident and it seemed the ankle was not healing properly: it was still swollen and had turned various shades of green, yellow, mixed with the requisite black and blue. I had been told I should have been able to walk on it after seven days and it was worse than it had been several days before.

So I made into the clinic that AM on my crutches. The doc gave a cursory glance at the ankle and pronounced it to be a nasty injury that would take its time to heal. He sent me on my way with nothing more to show for my effort than his signature on a requisition for a handicapped parking sticker - and the assurance that I was well on the road to recovery.

But yesterday night, two days later, as I was getting ready for bed, I unwrapped the foot and asked my wife (a nurse) for her opinion on the state of things. She said she thought it looked infected and marked the area of redness with a Sharpie Pen so she could tell in the AM if the infection had spread.

When I woke up this AM it did not appear to have spread but, then again, it did not appear any better, either. I called the clinic and they said to come back in to the Urgent Care to be seen by a trauma doctor.

So, once again, I staggered in on my crutches to be seen by yet another doctor - my fourth in 10 days - who pronounced rather quickly that the ankle and foot are infected and ordered a course of Erythrimiacin. And he told me that if the infection spread any further this weekend, I was to come back to Urgent Care, that they might put me in the hospital.

I can't say I'm not concerned. Not only is this whole mess painful and inconvenient, but it's potentially dangerous, as well. The infection could spread and, in a worst care scenario, infection could set into the bone and I could lose the foot. Or die.

It's in times of great difficulty that one often becomes introspective. It's strange how we all take so many things for granted, and how one's life can change in the flash of a moment: a wrong turn on the freeway, a moment's inattention while driving, the twist of an ankle... Things can change so quickly in life. I guess Warren Zevon - who is dying of cancer - was right when he said that the lesson he's taken out of his troubles is that one should enjoy one's sandwich. My version of it: make each day count and enjoy what you can, while you can.

In any event, I have this next Monday and Tuesday off. If the ankle and foot are not better at all by Tuesday AM I suppose it's back to the clinic. And if it's worse in the morning, it's off to the clinic tomorrow.

One good piece of news, if it can be called that, is that I finally got my CPAP machine. It's quite the contraption: it's got a base unit with a hose that connects to a mask that is worn over the nose. Air is blown through the system at increasing pressure throughout the night - it starts very light - and self-adjusts to the needs of the users. I haven't felt any benefit from it, but I did manage to sleep about seven hours last night with it strapped on and running. It's annoying, yes, but not untenable.

As for American Idol, I suppose everyone in the country - and some overseas - knows that Ruben beat Clay for first place. But out of some 25 or 30 million votes cast, there were only about 1300 seperating the two of them. (At least it didn't go to the Supreme Court.) The powers that be were smart enough to realize that both of them are stars and albums are being recorded for both of them, to be released the very same day. And word has it that Clay's first single is trouncing Ruben's in pre-sales on Amazon.com.

Well, it's off to bed for me. I hope to wake up to some see some improvement in my foot, but I'm not very hopeful, at this point.
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It gets worse before it gets better

[ 30 May 2003 | 06:48pm ]
[ mood | Worn Out ]
[ music | Ultraje A Rigor - Nos Vamos Invadir Sua Praia ]

To sum up: My foot was injured as bad it's ever been. And then infection set in.

It was terribly hard to get around on the crutches, but every couple of days I was having to go in to see some doctor or other in Urgent Care or at the clinic. Finally, on Monday past, I went to Urgent Care, was given a couple of shots of the most painful kind I've ever experienced and told to see the doc at my regular clinic the next day.

So the following afternoon I hobbled in and was given another shot of the same dreadfully painful stuff as the day before. They wanted me to come back to the clinic every day for the rest of the week to get further injections, but I asked the doc if I could have my wife administer them, as she's a nurse. After alot of huffing and puffing, it was finally agreed I could do just that. I was sent home with orders for three day's worth of the antibiotic to be administered daily by injection, well, you know where.

Trouble was, when I got home my wife and her dad - who's a doctor himself - looked at the ampules of the meds and told me that there must have been some mistake. The drug at that dose level is supposed to be administered every 8 hours, not every 24. We called the pharmacy and the nurse at the clinic, all who said that was the correct dose. Finally, after much hassle, we got ahold of a doctor who revised the dosage to be administered every 8 hours. Of course that meant that I'd be finished with the three ampules the very next morning, with two days left to go and no meds in the house. I was told to come into the clinic again the next day to get more medication, and that I could get set up for the drugs to be administered by IV instead by injection.

So on Wednesday I got to the clinic bright and early - and in mucho pain - only to have the doctor tell me after a cursory glance that I needed to be hospitalized, then and there. He was going to call Regions Hospital to secure a bed and he asked if I had any objection. I told him that I was confused, that I'd been told the night before that all I needed do was to come in to the clinic and I would be send home with more meds. Was there some other way?

The doctor rolled his eyes - he was quite busy and I could see he was frustrated. He muttered something about trying to make some phones calls and shuffled out of the room. A few minutes later he came back and told me if I would make tracks across town to Robbinsdale, he had made an appointment for me to see an Infectious Disease Specialist within the hour. He didn't write down the name or address and, in fact, seemed unsure about where I was to be going. He told me he'd have a nurse come in shortly to give me that information. I waited for nearly 15 minutes and no one came. But since I had the name of both the doctor and the clinic, I decided to just leave and take my chances - I had been to the same clinic a few weeks before and I was sure I knew how to get there.

The upshot was that after about another three hours at the Infectious Disease clinic, I had a Heparin Lock placed in my right arm and was given a bag of potent antibiotic by IV. They sent me home and set me up to meet with a Home Health Care person the next day, who'd bring out the subsequent drugs to be administered by IV, at home - which they did. (The folks at the Infectious Disease clinic were excellent, very attentive and professional, unlike some of the others I encountered in the system elsewhere.)

So, after two days of finally getting some decent and appropriate medication, together with staying in bed with my foot elevated (I'm writing this on a laptop), the swelling has started to go down and the color is almost back to normal. (It was swollen horribly and was a bright pink.) I was told to go back to the I.D. clinic on Tuesday next to see if further therapy is needed. Of course, once the infection heals, I have to deal with the sprain. My father-in-law (the MD) said it's as bad a sprain as he's seen and that it'll take months to get completely back to normal. Do I hear violins?

So, there. That's the story of my life the past few days. At least I've had time to catch up on my reading. Still, I'd rather be walking.
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