Monday, March 19, 2007

Cellulitis: as icky as it sounds

Soooooo, on Friday morning I woke up at 6am, and went....."Owwww - my leg hurts", but there wasn't anything to see, so I took some Ibuprofen and zonked out again until noon. At noon, I woke up and went "Shit! I was supposed to meet Kal to try out Buddhist meditation!" (which seemingly wasn't that much of a loss for me) , closely followed by "owwwww, my leg hurts still". This time, there was a little something to see - just a little red welt about the size of 2 thumbs together, but very hot and very sore.

Anyway, it was an interesting day: I went to meet Kal and we looked around the Pixar exhibition, which was excellent. Go there, find the xoetrope, which is a fabulous spinning thing (which is waaaaaay too complicated for me to understand, let alone explain) and watch it at least twice, preferably three times - twice to go "WOW! How the hell.....?" and once to look at the expressions on the faces of everyone else as they go "Wooooooaah! How the hell......?", which is good fun :)

We had yummy sandwiches, naughty flapjacks, saw the exhibition, and then went back to Kal's for a bit. By this time, I felt officially like crap - I was thinking "oh, lord, what luck: I've probably got DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) and will die, *and* I've got the flu. Harsh. So we went to Kal's: he played videogames, I watched Peepshow and drank vast quanities of tea, occasionally going "Owwww", *goan*, *whimper* and generally was quite pathetic. I didn't want to go home, because Paul, the husband, was supposed to be away for the weekend, and fearing a gruesome death or, worse, having no-one to make me tea, I was not keen to go anywhere, but all good things must come to an end, so I headed home about 6pm. Fortunately for me, Paul wasn't able to go away, which just worked out dandy in the end, but did kind of involve him being defrauded out of £100, so I am *pretty* selfish for thinking that's good (don't worry, he got it back - I'll tell you about it another time). As the evening wore on, my shin got bigger...and bigger..... and bigger and began stabbing me and throbbing, so about 9.15pm I gave in and rang NHS24 for advice. They were, eventually, and against all the odds, very helpful and got me an appointment within 45 minutes at the out of hours, drop-in centre at the hospital... but only after *this* conversation:

Me: Hi, yeah, my shin is really sore and swollen - very angry and painful
Nurse: Ok, has anything happened (etc etc, fill this bit in yourself)
Me: No, I just woke up this morning and it was sore, and it's just been getting worse all day
Nurse: Right, does your foot hurt all the time, or just when you move it?
Me: Well, it's my shin that hurts, but yes it hurts more when I move in general
Nurse: Ok, so the foot has been sore since 6, and is just getting more swollen?
Me: No.... no, my *shin* is swollen and sore, sore at 6am, now very swollen and red and sore
Nurse: So it's not your foot?
Me: No. It has nothing to do with my foot. It's my shin.....
... and so on and so on, until the message sunk in.

So, I jumped in a taxi (for jumped read; limped, was half carried, stumbled and lurched, with many exclamations of pain and distress) and was at the hosital for 10.20, with my appointment due in 10 minutes. But.... they saw me straight away, I saw a lovely, friendly "practitioner" (what does this mean?) who diagnosed cellulitis straight away, gave me useful information and free medication and sent me on my way. We were back in the taxi by 10.30 and on our way home, with the advice that should the swelling progress above the line on my leg (which the practitioner drew in biro) or if my fever got worse, my glands were to swell, or I began vomiting, then it was straight back to hospital for me for IV antibiotics.

So long LONG story short, Saturday was awful. I felt like crap, was running a sweaty, smelly temperature, looked like a zombie, couldn't stand or walk alone, had to be taken to the loo by paul, didn't want to eat, and was regularly in so much pain that I was crying like a wee girl. Sucks. To. Be. Me. I wanted to go to hospital, except that the thought of trying to get dressed, get downstairs, get bumped around in a taxi and actually try to *tell* someone what was wrong was just not on, so I stayed home, and I'm glad, because by Sunday things were much improved. I could hold a conversation, watch telly, read and, get this... go to the loo alone! How much do I rock!

Today finds me still largely incapacitated - I can hobble about without Paul (which is good since he's at work!), I've eaten, and my temperature is much more regular, even though I have a nastily insipid cough that stops me from breathing deeply. My leg looks *revolting*, I wont bore you with the details, or even a close-up picture :p

But in spite of the ickyness and the pain and all the rest of it, there have been a few shiny, comedic moments:

The discovery that if I wear fluffy socks Paul can push me around the house like a trolly instead of having to carry me, and it is *damned* hard to steer with only one foot on the ground.

The classic moment last night when Paul, after a long day of helpfulness, went to fetch my laptop so I could email uni, and dropped the battery pack for the laptop directly on my sore shin, resulting in a few minutes of near-hysterical tears of pain and shock, closely followed by a few minutes of actually hysterical tears of laughter as he desperately apologised. Bless him :)

So, here's hoping that soon, very soon, I will be able to get the FUCK off this sofa and do something. Anything!

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