So on Sunday I noticed that the middle finger of my left hand was hurting rather a lot. I couldn’t remember hitting it or cutting it or squishing it in a newspaper box like I did to my thumb last summer (which still hasn’t healed properly), so I concluded it must have been one of those mindless moments of chewing off those bits that sometimes come out of your cuticles. Gross habit, I know, and I promise I will never do it again.
Sunday night in bed I started sweating uncontrollably, which was only partly explained by the 60 million degrees that my beloved husband likes to keep the bedroom at. I turned off the heater and kept sweating, but then the shivering started. I felt like I was about to burst into flames, yet if I lifted a corner of the blanket (or worse, got out of bed to pee) I would shiver for ten minutes.
And my left armpit was hurting, as well as other random spots on my left arm.
It was a delightful night, let me tell you, as I lay there feverishly, sweating and shivering and imagining what I would do on Monday. While comforted by the fact that my workplace is right down the street from Hospital Row, I was rather distressed by the fact that my health card (required for access to Canada’s wonderful “free” health care) was somewhere in the mail between me and the passport office. I wondered which hospital to go to (it’s nice to have a selection), and who I could call to accompany me to emerg when I finally passed out, and how I could talk the nice people at the hospital into letting me in without a health card, and how much money I would lose if I missed a day of work because I’m not allowed to get sick until January. These pleasant thoughts eventually lulled me to sleep.
Work on Monday. I was no longer sweating or shivering, but my finger and my arm hurt quite a lot more than they had been. Plagued by visions of my friend who almost lost his finger to a paper cut that got infected (as well as stories from this here Dope, from people whose minor injuries suddenly and terrifyingly got mortally infected) I thought it would behoove me to seek medical attention.
At this point, the fates had pity on me. Before I sent my health card (and birth certificate, and expired passport - basically, all the identification I own) off to the passport office, I had wisely thought to run off a few copies of them all and stash them in my desk at the office. They had not been seen since the day I mailed the application, but they presented themselves to me on Monday morning. This would come in quite handy when I went to the walk-in medical clinic that the fates had throughtfully provided in the main floor of my building.
Down to the pharmacy I went, to show the pharmicist my finger and ask if I should see a doctor. “Yes.” she said. “Yes you should.”
Five minutes later, I was talking to a doctor. I tell you, I couldn’t even see my OWN doctor that quickly.
Kind Dr Wong looked at my finger, poked at my armpit, looked in my throat, inspected my arm, and told me that although he couldn’t see any red streaks indicating that the infection had spread, he would conclude from the swollen lymph nodes, the black spot on my finger, and the agonizing pain that some penicillin was in order.
After I figured out that even though you’re supposed to take it on an empty stomach, it really really helps to take it with some water, the agonizing heartburn subsided somewhat and I was able to soldier on.
So now it’s Wednesday. I no longer have night sweats, but the infection is still raging and a new part of my arm hurts every day (not to mention my finger, which has gone from just puffy and slightly painful to red and black and puffy and very painful).
This morning I lay in bed, listening to the miserable rain and wondering how I could manage to fly south for the winter. Hitch a ride on a passing goose, or something, and lay about in Mexico until things got better. Started to feel the tickling of a cold, which must have been lurking in wait until I was weak and helpless.
Then, the fates exacted payment for their kindnesses of Monday.
Did you know that penicillin can cause yeast infections?
I didn’t. But I do now. :mad: