Around 11am last Saturday, while out picking green beans for the big cookout, I felt like something maybe bit me on the back of the calf, or perhaps I'd bumped into one of the prickles on the pumpkin vines... Nothing too serious - just a quick swipe seemed to take care of it. We went on with our day, running out shopping, eating lunch, the cookout, etc....but boy was my calf itchy!! The "mosquito bite" (which is what I assumed it was), turned into a small, very itchy welt!
During dinner I remember feeling like it was unusually hot out, and was sweating on the "inside bend" of my elbows, backs of my knees, etc. I was also feeling a bit odd/headachey, and was just blaming that on the single glass of wine I'd had, along with all the stress of getting ready.
When we went to bed around 11 that night, I was feeling some serious chills - again, I felt at first it was just stress related...like I was coming down from the crazy day, plus we'd had the AC running, and the evening temps have really been dropping fast lately. Strange - I had the shivers as I went to sleep. I worried I'd picked up the flu or, oh god, what if I'd had food poisoning from some of the food, and now others might have it!?
Woke up at 2am with a 102.1 fever, plus the uncontrollable shivers, and a serious headache. And my leg ached quite a bit.
The next morning I woke up to find this on my calf:
Apparently that is what they call a boil. Doesn't look too big, and it wasn't really, but the whole surrounding area had swollen, turned pink, and was radiating heat - about a 6x8" area! It HURT to stand on the leg - like my calf muscle was in a constant cramp.
Peter and Conrad came over Sunday morning, and were surprised I hadn't gone to the emergency room. I didn't want to rush to that just yet, and figured we'd just see how it went. For situations like this, when your body is going through fast changes, I've learned it helps to document with pictures, AND to actually draw lines marking the affected areas. Heck, in this case, it helped to actually write down the HOUR of the markings since the red area was expanding so fast...
BTW - don't laugh at my tan lines - I need to expose my ankles and feet to the sun more!
By Sunday afternoon the red area had expanded, and we went to an urgent care/medgroup place that was open til 4pm.
The dr there took a sample (meaning he squeezed the boil), gave me a tetanus shot, and prescribed both a steroid (prednisone-based) and Clindamycin. We went to Waltmart's pharmacy, but they both didn't have enough Clindamycin for the incredibly high dosage (450mg) the dr had prescribed, plus they didn't want to fulfill it until they confirmed this amount with the dr. Same with the Giant Eagle pharmacy. Turns out high dosages of Clindamycin can open one up to getting C-Diff, which is not fun from what I understand.
Oh yeah, by this time the fever had come down completely. I'd been taking a mix of benadryl and ibuprofin, which was really helping with the symptoms, but not winning the battle.
Monday morning I started taking the steroids, and the bite site had turned grayish/purple and bubbly looking. We got in to see my primary care physician, and was given a prescription for 875mg of Augmentin instead of the Clindamycin. These pills are HUGE!!! Oh, and thankfully Brett was driving me everywhere at this point - between the leg pain and the steroids, it was much better to have someone else driving!
By Tuesday almost all of the big red area had faded, looking only slightly bruised if anything, and most of the ache was gone. The rest of the week has had me on the steroid taper (taking fewer pills each day), and friends at work being highly amused by my goofy dopiness thanks to the odd effects of the prednisone. I've been eating a lot of yogurt and taking acidophilus pills, so the stomach issues from the antibiotics have been minimal (whew!). The bite site itself still looks bad to others, consisting mostly of a DARK scab surrounded by a slightly itchy irritated area, but trust me, it's muuuuch better than how things were last week!
And the test results came back Thursday - I had a staph infection (not MRSA or anything else) in the wound. No way to know what REALLY bit me - sounds like it wasn't something TOO venomous since my immediate reaction wasn't too bad, and instead it worsened with the infection. It could be something like a horsefly or deerfly bit me, and had something infectious on it. We'll never know....but I AM a little paranoid in the garden now! ;-)
3 comments:
Ouch!!! You are lucky Jeph. A friend of mine was bitten on the knee and it did the same thing. A few days later he started having chest pains. My mother took him to the ER. They said he had a staff infection from the bite and was within days of death. They put a drip in near his heart pumping antibiotics for three weeks. The infection had started to attack his heart. He spent a week in the hosptital!
It took him months to fully recover.
It's best not to wait.
I, too, have had some insect bites this year that led to raised flat swellings about as big as softballs. (What bit? Who knows!) Luckily no infections, just topical heat and frustrating itch. Thankfully you got some real medical attention. I wonder if so many 'antibacterial' products have had a reverse effect on us - reducing our immune systems toward infections. Staph is serious stuff. Glad you are OK and on the mend!
Thanks guys - and that's scary to know someone had it been spreading to the heart!!
Kris - check this - a coworker just sent me the link to the OSU extension site for gardeners, and the latest entry mentions the wheel bug (and those nasty blister beetles!), and I think Joe Lamp'l recently showed a wheel bug on his blog. I'm scared of them now, and I've never seen one! I kept wondering if that was what got me in the garden after seeing Joe's pic...
http://bygl.osu.edu/index.php/bygl-2009/858-bygl-august-6-2009
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