OK, here comes Broomstick’s Abcess Story (again)
I think it started as a bug bite, but truthfully, with a hide like mine with so many creative ways to break out, rash, or otherwise develop nastiness it could have been anything, really.
Well, a day later, I wake up at 2:30 in the morning and it’s like I have a ping-pong ball implanted under the skin of my cheek. Pain. Redness. An ominions black scab on the center of it.
So, of course I go into the bathroom to inspect it. This mother was so painful I couldn’t even touch my skin lightly, much less squeeze the sucker. After nervous consultation, the husband get’s a needle and a bic lighter for some home surgery because the wife is running around the apartment moaning in pain.
Well, that sucker is DEEP. And painful. And the husband can bring himself to get that needle deep enough to release the steadily building pressure.
A couple hours late I am throwing up from the pain. Mind you, I’ve broken bones and waited days to go to the doctor, so I’m not exactly a whimp in the pain tolerance department.
Dawn comes, the husband calls the doctor who says bring her in first thing. So there I am in the doc’s office, my eyes watering from the pain, and the ping-pong is now a softball. The doc goes “ooooo… that needs to be drained. Today. Let me call the hospital, I know this surgeon…”
This day is really starting to suck, you know?
So, we (husband and I) drive to the hospital. The surgeon looks at me. He pokes at the softball. I somehow resist the urge to cause Great Bodily Harm to the perpetrator of such pain. He goes “ooooo… I’m not comfortable operating where that is. Let me call this other surgeon…”
The new guy is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. He and the first surgeon start talking about landmarks and nerves and nicking nerves and…
This day is NOT going well.
Eventually, I am ushered down to an OR
[continued on next post]