I have just experienced another reason to shake a fist at BC Health Care. If you aren’t down with the idea of reading a graphic, rant induced story with some squirmy moments I suggest you stop.
SO I have been experiencing this problem since this past Wednesday. It started as an annoying throb in the right side of my mouth, right in between where the lips connected. I thought nothing of it. Thursday the throbbing became more of a tingle. I remembered that Al used get coldsores and right before an on-set he would get a tingly lip. Even though I have never had a cold sore, I decide this is still a tangible option. Then I recalled the time when I got a zit right under a nostril, right in the crack, and how much my nostril swelled up. I consider this another possible option. It’s annoying, but I still pass it off. Friday I’ve got some swelling. It’s not crazy notable, in face it looks like there is more evidence of it being a zit now so the mystery is solved.
Saturday it got intense. I put a hot compress on my face for about an hour and a half in the morning, and the pain goes away. However – my upper lip on one side is obviously quite swollen. I happen to be working – and it’s Valentines Day – so I decide to be sassy and I wear a tutu to work and make an ‘Anti-cupid’ costume. Alot of this idea came about as an idea to distract people from my obviously swollen and mangled looking mug! Ugh, I can hear the witty drunkards comments now! I was so annoyed
During the shift my pain increased considerably. I started running through idea’s of what it could be related to. Consider the fact I got a tragus piercing about 2 months ago, perhaps its become infected and infected my whole face! EEWWW!! Consider if I have been having any other notable symptoms. I have had hot/cold flashes the last 4-5 nights in my sleep. I contributed it to my flannel bedspread, even though I have been sleeping with it since December. Realize my longboard kick foot has been aching like a bitch from the longboard/dancing day I had exactly a week prior. Damn, that’s a long time to heal a sore calf. I also got an IUD a month ago, so I research some of the possible side effects. I’m pretty sure none of them apply to me, save possibly sepsis. You know, blood poisoning. Seeing as I didn’t see what went on down there how do I know?
I decide to call the nurses help line. She asks me lots, and lots of questions. And promptly sends me to the Emergency Room. Fuck. It’s 12:45am. Get there, get processed, checked out. See doctor. Lots of questions. Nice guy. I had a little running commentary from here on. Tell’s me no ( you idiot ) you do not have sepsis. No, ( you idiot ) that piercing has nothing to do with this. And most certainly ( God dammit, I hate the internet ) nothing has traveled through your face. He tell’s me that it’s some kind of skin infection, and given the fact that it’s given me cold sweats and a few other various symptoms he needs to treat it aggressively with both oral and IV drugs. This requires me coming back after my first treatment ( Now, oh yay! ) and again for the next two nights. She gives me a gigantic tablet (which I learn later to be Probenacid) and tells me it will help break down the IV in my body.
( FUN FACT! At no point was I told anything else about this simple sounding drug, yet the first google hit I got had these little tidbits:
1.To reduce the risk that kidney stones will form drink at least 8-10 glasses of fluid every day, unless your doctor tell’s you not to
2. Take Probenacid with food or an antacid to lessen stomach upset
3. Do not take aspirin, salsalate (Disalcid), magnesium salicylate (Magan, Doan’s), choline and magnesium salicylate (Trilisate), or other aspirin-like products unless your doctor approves. These products decrease the effects of probenecid. Taking one aspirin a day to reduce the risk of a heart attack is usually acceptable, if prescribed by your doctor
So the nurse comes in and she looks nervous as all hell. I try and crack a joke, or have her in some way prove to me she wansn’t a total noob but she just looked at me and said; “If I don’t get this the first time I promise I’ll go get a pro.” Ummm… say what? She, of course, totally misses. She comes back with not one, but 4 paramedics. They all take turns looking at my arms and commenting on how many valves I have and what a pain in the ass my tattoo is. One asks me to give props to the artist ( Yeah, Shwa! ). The first guy takes 3 cracks at me, failing each time. ( I’ve been feeling some pretty gnarly pain all day due to the massive swelling in my lip and I’m on no endorphins now. Despite the piercing pin cushion I am I feel every single *poke* *poke* as that fucker is fumbling around in there. I realize that I have to come back for IV’s the next two days. Omg. How many times am I going to be stabbed in three days?! ) My heart beats even a little faster. Now we’re onto the next guy. He’s confident, too! ( They keep cracking super lame jokes about how “stubborn” I am, and how I don’t want to “give up my veins”, but this guy is “not asking, he’s taking”. It felt like I was in the middle of a Max Payne scene ) He misses. And three more times. And now we’re onto the third guy. ( I cannot fucking believe this. The anti-cupid ended up with 4 men hovering over her on Valentines Day, however they were all assaulting her with IV needles! WHAT THE FUCK?! ) This guy misses, too, and although they had previously suggested giving me an Intravenous Needle ( which is actually a chunk of plastic stuck in your arm for the next 3 days with a visible iv tube of your own blood gazing out through the gauze ) and decided that they weren’t as effective they decide to go that route anyways. They succeed.
I ask for a tylenol. ( I very rarely take anything for pain but that was just wrong. I hurt, ache and am still swollen and really wanting to scream about what just happened ) Nobody comes back for 20 minutes. They finally come, put the IV in ( which I am told is going to take 20 minutes ) and I again ask for a tylenol. Nobody comes back for 30 minutes. I see another nurse who was really snarky and rude about it for a tylenol. Nobody comes back for an hour and 10 minutes. She finally comes back . She hands me 2 bags of pills ( my favorite thing ). One bag is the Probenacid which I need to take every 6 hours for the next 2.5 days. The second Keflex ( no information given about this, either ) which I need to take 4 pills of Sunday morning, and another Monday morning. I return to the clinic at 7:00pm on both days for my second and third IV treatment ( zomg ) and on Monday the doctor will re-assess my situation.
( FUN FACTS ABOUT KEFLEX! )
Keflex side effects
Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat. Call your doctor at once if you have any of these serious side effects:
- diarrhea that is watery or bloody;
- seizure (convulsions);
- fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash;
- pale or yellowed skin, dark colored urine, fever, confusion or weakness;
- easy bruising or bleeding, unusual weakness;
- confusion, agitation, hallucinations (seeing things that are not there); or
- urinating less than usual or not at all.
Less serious side effects are more likely to occur, such as:
- mild nausea, vomiting, diarrhea;
- dizziness, tired feeling;
- joint pain; or
- vaginal itching or discharge.
Side effects other than those listed here may also occur. Talk to your doctor about any side effect that seems unusual or that is especially bothersome.
( My favorite part is the first sentence. To seek emergency medical help if I have swelling of the face. Ummm – what? ). As she is about to leave I asked her again about the tylenol ( I am nothing if not persistant ) and she tells me: “Listen hunny. this is a hospital, not The Hilton. Go home and sleep it off”.( raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage! I’m too tired to contemplate making a scene. My arms look like they could be a prop in a Requiem for a Dream scene. This is fucked up ) I go home. I write this insanely long and calculated blog entry because I figure it the most cathartic way to Gus Frabba that incident away.
While I realize that Emergency Room Doctor’s obviously don’t have alot of time on their hands to tell every patient every little detail about the meds they give, or why… but I don’t have alot of faith in Health Care due to the several times I have been misdiagnosed or incorrectly treated in my life ( this slashfest on my arms didn’t help much ) but I think some of that stuff could have made this experience a whole less shitty. ( You know – reduce the risk of kidney stones, keep my stomach from being upset, and know better to not take asprin so they drugs actually work. UGH ).
I start my new job with track marks, and an IV in the inside my elbow. I can’t really bend that arm, they said, so I don’t knock the thing holding my vein open out. ( EWWWWWWW ) Oh, and I can’t work tomorrow night because of the IV treatment which is going to cause some money stress. And don’t even get me started on this innocuous diagnosis of ‘internal and external skin infection to be assessed in 48 hours time’. ( Uhhh, so is this shit you gave me even going to get rid of my swollen freak face, or what?! )
Final thoughts: I’m glad I didn’t get that tylenol, after all. Somehow even though I have been so hit or miss with actually wearing my retainer, I somehow just deemed it important to put it into my swollen mouth. And tonight at the hospital when they asked me who I could call to come pick me up at 4:30am when I was finally able to leave… I felt the lonliest I have in a long, long, long time.
