November 29, 2015

it gets worse

     My wife and I are driving home from a quick whirlwind trip on my day off.  At the beginning of the day, I knew something was off and I was starting to sit funny.  I thought that if I could get home and get on some antibiotics, I'd be good.  Oh, how naïve that thought would be in retrospect.  I had started to develop a furuncle in, shall we say a rather delicate area as a result of the gastroenteritis.  By the evening on the way home, I was writhing in pain.  My wife suggested, "maybe we just keep driving right down to the med center."
     Being the idiot that I am, I wanted to know what I was dealing with.  But I couldn't exactly see it so I asked her to pull over at a McDonald's.  Like a cowboy who has been on the trail for 6 months, I limp bowlegged to the bathroom, lock the door, and with the help of modern technology, took a selfie that I will not post out of decorum.  Holy shit.  This was no furuncle.  This was an abscess.  And a significantly large and angry one at that.  Calm down.  Deep breath.  I need to examine it to see how bad it is.  So again with the help of my iPhone high definition live camera feed, I used it as a mirror to guide my exam.  I began to palpate to see how much fluid was in there and how indurated it was.  I didn't even have time to let loose a string of expletives because I about passed out from the pain the instant my fingers put pressure on the abscess.  That would've made for an interesting viral video and a very confused McDonald's employee who found me.  I stood back up to catch my breath, try to avoid passing out, and got dressed after about 5 minutes.  I hobbled slowly back outside and told my wife, "Yeah, you're right. Just go straight down to the ER."

No comments: