i give
I'm throwing in the white flag to surrender. I like to think one of the things I've had going for me has been my tolerance. I've often told doctors or techs to do what they needed to do because I could get through it. And I did. But now, I think I've met my defeat.
Monday morning my forearm started hurting down from where the IV site had been. It had been fine Sunday when the nurse removed the IV and even before that, so this was new to me. I didn't think much of it though. I just tried to ignore the discomfort and went on with the day. Tuesday morning I woke up and it was quite a bit worse. The tenderness was spreading and more intense. The pain only increased as the day went on. By 3:00 I noticed redness streaking up my arm from the IV site.
By this morning, it was red, swelling, warm to the touch and hurting beyond belief. I asked the school nurse for advice and she practically freaked out on me. She insisted I call my doctor immediately. After a long morning of waiting for the doctor to respond & pretending I was okay, she finally returned my call and told me to hurry over.
She said it's a very bad infection.When she grabbed my arm to examine it, I started throwing up. (what a wimp I am & how embarrassing!) The pain was too much to handle anymore. She gave me a shot and oral antibiotics and wants to look at it again tomorrow with Dr. Thompson. She said she'd talk to him about the possibility of it being an internal staph infection. (but told me not to worry about that ~ so I won't) I can't take any pain meds or ibuprofen, so we're hoping the antibiotics work & kick in quickly.
I left immediately after school and it's taken all my energy to just deal with the pain. I'm completely defeated. It's kinda funny that after everything, it seems an arm infection is going to be my breaking point.....
