Ughness!

"If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem.  Everything else is inconvenience. " ~ Robert Fulghum

Ughness! My surgical wound still has the stitches in and was supposed to be healing, but I was remaining in pain. And in the last two days I noticed that an area of the cut was a pinkish color and that area was where most of my pain was coming from. I knew I didn't have a follow-up visit with my surgeon until June, 11th, but I did have an appointment with Dr. M. on Thursday, so I thought I'd just wait another day and then see Dr. M and have her tell me if she thought an infection was starting to develop or not.

But then, today, Tuesday, I get a voicemail from Dr. M's staff saying that my appointment for Thursday had to be canceled. But since I had to do something today which would take me right by her office, I decided I would just go in and have her, or her nurse, take a look at my surgical area because I really did feel like something might not be right (plus I had another question about a med that I wanted clarification on which I'll write of in another post).

So, I stop by and I'm talking to Dr. M.'s administrator, T., about the two things I really need to see Dr. M. for, and Dr. M. comes out of one of her consult rooms and says she can fit me in. I tell both of them I've got this other engagement and I'll be back after that is taken care of and their like, fine.

I get back to Dr. M.'s about forty-five minutes later, wait another ten minutes, and then I get in to see Dr. M and have her look at my surgical wound. She does think it looks like an infection is developing, but thinks it is strange that it isn't over the whole wound, it's only one part of it, and doesn't notice any oozing of pus (sorry for the TMI!) and isn't really, really red. So, she calls her nurse in to take a look, too, and her nurse, V., says it also looks like an infection is developing, and she says she does see a slight bit of oozing. Long story short, I'm now on an antibiotic and hopefully it will be strong enough to nip anything more serious in the bud.

Once again, I feel thankful for my intuition, pushing me to make sure that my wound was seen, because even though it wasn't red, red, and it didn't appear to me to be oozing anything, I still just really felt like something was not quite right and that the sooner it got looked at the better.

And as a side note (in which I wish my intuition had worked even a little bit) - a really big side note: I haven't broken my neck. I do have something to eat. But my house did catch on fire yesterday. Yes, fireman and all. 

Everything is okay, although it was quite scary, it happened so fast. I made sure my mom got out of the house. I ran back into it, trying to put out the flames (from the bar stove downstairs... it was an accident on my part!) thinking of how to do it. I remembered you're never supposed to put water on fire, it only makes things worse. But things happened so fast, you're confused, and that black smoke, soars quickly and thickly to the ceiling. 

There were burnable items that were about to be inflamed (hell, I mostly use that bar area as my printer, office space. I've never once thought of the stove as even being usable. I'm not sure that in 25 years it has been used!) I throw those in the sink, ran to get a thick blanket, threw it over the flames, had to run up stairs to get my breath, ran back down to see if the flames were dowsed at least somewhat, which they seemed to be. 

I then opened up the sliding door out to the patio, ran back up stairs to make sure my mom stayed out of the house and asking her if the firemen were, in fact, on their way! 

I ran back down the stairs, was practically mesmerized, except for the air and stench keeping me from being so, by the intenseness of the black swirling smoke moving like a river across the roof, and opened more windows in other rooms.

Finally I ran back up the stairs for the last time, went out side where my mom was sitting in a plastic chair, and laid there, on the cool concrete, feeling like my lungs were slightly scorched, out of breath and waited for what seemed like a long time until the two fire trucks arrived (from two equally distant stations). 

They went around the back of the house, made sure all flames and embers were out - I think if I hadn't have done what I did, by the time the fireman had got there that room would have been engulfed - and then put on the "fan" which supposedly cleared out the smoke, but which, probably also blew the ash seemingly, everywhere! 

I was thankful for the fireman doing what they did - make sure everything was better and give us the all clear. 

Anyway, not only do I have my little surgical infection, but I have a house that smells like burnt plastic and black ash covering every single item in half of it. And the task of cleaning it all up is overwhelming me even as I write this!

So, regarding my lead quotation: I not only do have an inconvenience, but I actually did have a problem as well!