June 18, 2002
Last week, I got a third eye in the middle of my forehead between my eyebrows, appropriately enough. About Thursday night, it started to throb, so I attempted to pop it which was a dismal failure and it looked even worse on Friday, which frankly, I didn't think was possible. I was sure it that it was going to start winking at cute guys at work, despite the fact that it was so weepy. Because it hurt so bad and was about the size of a quarter, I called my doctor.
I mean, shit, I'm almost 40 years old...getting a third eye in the middle of my forehead isn't a good thing. It was an infection of magnitude and infection in a diabetic's body is a truly scary and horrible thing. My doctor was gone for the day and his nurse said to use hot compresses and drain it. We'd played phone tag, so she'd left a message on my voice mail and I got busy and didn't call back basically to explain that this was the Mofo of all facial boils, and that I mean, shit, I'm almost 40 years old.
I was weird at work. I said stuff I regretted and was embarrassed about. (And later apologized.) I wasn't feeling good, but I figured it was because I was tired. I went home and I noticed that my right eye socket tissue was a little swollen and bruise colored. I had the slightest of black eyes. I did what the nurse told me and tried to clean the stupid thing.
Saturday morning, I couldn't wake up. I tested my sugars, thinking that I might be high, and they were 100, so it wasn't my sugars. I rubbed my eyes and they felt funny and that third eye had grown in prominence in the night. I looked in the mirror and my eyes were swollen. And all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there in a coma all day.
And we got busy with kids, breakfast, and waking up and I could feel the swelling increasing. I looked in the mirror and looked about cross-eyed with the swelling and I was loopy and tired. We'd planned a BBQ with friends, so we had to go into town and shop for some groceries. Mike drove because I couldn't. On the way there, he announced that I was going to urgent care. I had called the dr from the house before we left and then called again on the cell. The doctor on call called me back and I told him what was going on and that it seemed like the infection had gotten more systemic because I felt like I had the flu.
Doctors mean well, I mean they want you to take care of yourself and they're used to people doing stupid stuff, so sometimes they are extreme. The doctor told me to go to urgent care immediately. I told him we were on the way, but I was kind of befuddled as we spoke, infection seething in my bloodstream pretty fully at this point. He then told me that an infection like this so close to the brain could infect a vein and give me a stroke and kill me. I knew head infections can get bad and that this one was getting bad fast, and that scared the shit out of me. I wanted to call 911 and get an ambulance to race me to the hospital. Right then. Right there. But I was too spaced out to communicate that. I was drifting off in Infectionland.
Bedside manner, my ass.
I told Mike this because I was essentially in a new dimension of space and time at this point and could really feel the infection taking hold. He gets stupid when I'm sick. Really really stupid. He's not a stupid guy and everyone thinks he's so laid back, but he's not. He's a little stress bunny, but he's so quiet that when he's stressed he gets more talkative. Suddenly, he couldn't figure out what street we needed to get to or how to get there. I couldn't have reasoned myself out of a box at the time. I was drifting out there in Infectionland. I couldn't drive and coherent directions to Urgent Care to a stressed out worried husband were a big stretch, too.
Mike: "Where is it?"
At which point I blew a gasket. "That's our bank! You're being stupid on purpose!" Then he said something that reduced me to tears and I sobbed,"Turn right, and...um.....go left at the next light. *sob* I hate you. *sob* Stewart."
He apologized profusely and I just leaned against the window sobbing, realizing dimly that Genny was watching me sob and she was whining, too.
It must have been lovely for Mike. His two favorite girls whining and sobbing.
He drove me there and they handed me a clipboard with three papers to fill out and I was well nigh incoherent by this time and just handed it to Mike and he filled out things, with me knowing that he'd ask me questions that would only require one word answers.
Then I was told that they wanted to get some antibiotics on board before I left the clinic and that they were going to do a quick IV. I got nervous.
I have had some really hideous experiences with IVs. I remember distinctly the time I had gone to the Stevie Wonder concert in Oakland the day after I'd had my first abortion. I felt like crap and was depressed, but you can't go to a Stevie Wonder concert in Oakland and not dance your ass off. At 230AM, I was at the San Francisco General emergency room bleeding heavily. They decided they wanted to do an IV, but my veins kept rolling and collapsing, as if that were my fault somehow. They anethetized my hand, but they were digging so deeply into it with the needles that I was bawling and begging them to stop with blood running down my fingers.
And while none have been quite that traumatic since, I've had a few doozies. The top of my hands are a mine field of IV scars.
So, I'm feeling high in Infectionland and am pulled out of there briefly to a trip down Terror Lane. I was nervous. I've been stuck by a lot of needles, so I was telling them which hand was the best to stick because I was nervous. I had a nurse go completely apeshit on me. She bitched me out because I wasn't remaining positive in the face of being afraid. Um, the words, "fuck" and "off" came to mind immediately. When she left after unloading her tirade on me, I looked at the other nurse and she said,"She got nervous, apparently. Sorry about that." I laughed and said,"I'm not afraid of needles. I've injected myself a lot and I've been stuck a lot. I just am not fond of pain and I've got a very unpleasant history with IV needles."
I got blood drawn and the grumpy nurse gave me a shot of antibiotic in the bum, which probably made her feel better about the whole thing, in retrospect.
And today, I'm fully loaded on antibiotics and all I want to do is sleep until next weekend.
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