It’s 9:28 and I’m sitting in my boxers and hospital gown. I have three instances of gauze held onto my arms and hands with an ample amount of surgical tape. I have a compacted bandage on my right foot. There is an IV in my right left hand. Today I was poked eight times with a needle. Four times to get an IV started in my dehydrated veins. Three times to hit my nerves up with enough lidocaine to block the feeling out of my toe (let me tell you folks, that needle felt nice). Once to draw a blood sample which will be tested and scrutinized for who knows what. Not to mention, I have urinated a total of 170 CCs in a two hour span.
How did this happen? What am I doing here?
If you keep up with me through my Twitter, then you should know that I have had some form of toe ailment in recent days. Unfortunately, that toe woe has culminated into a pretty serious staph infection.
It started with a pair of new flip flops, Rainbows to be exact. The all leather flip flop your favorite sorority sister or frat brah probably sported while attending your local college or university. I have had my pair of synthetic alien / unnatural polymer material pair of Quicksilver’s ever since college. They were about to the point where I had worn holes in the heels of both feet. So, obviously, I thought it was an appropriate hour to invest in a good pair that might last me even longer than my previous pair of faithful footwear.
Unfortunately, being a greenhorn to the world of all-leather apparel, I was not aware of the learning curve. Meaning, they needed to be properly broken in before extended wear.
Naturally, I rubbed a nice piece of skin off on the top of my toe. Naturally, cousin Andrew begged me to go to the 28th Annual Vintage Virginia wine tasting festival. And I obliged. Naturally we traipsed around in the mud with my open wound in flip flops … naturally (I’m not really sure where I got the infection but this is a the number one suspect).
So, to make a rather long, tedious story short and sweet, my small scab turned into a blood blister which in turn led to swelling and redness. At the urging of my father, a physician, I visited a local Urgent Care clinic to see what was up. I was diagnosed with an infection and given antibiotics. Of course, it got redder, swelled up like Rod Blagojevich’s ego, and felt monumentally worse. So in the next couple of days there was some slicing, uncomfortable compacting, an IV bag, and lots and lots of betadine, an old friend of mine back in high school when I toiled as a IV stock clerk. Oh, and it was all “Let there be blood” on every visit, too.
Eventually, after trading pictures of my foot with my dad (in return he gave me bad news – what a deal), it was recommended that aggresive action be taken. So, it was planned that I fly down this morning to Atlanta, get to Thomaston, and get all of the dead tissue and skin scraped off and removed. After brief consultation with the local orthopedic surgeon, I was admitted into Upson Regional Medical Center and an hour later, Dr. Donati was injecting a four inch needle into my foot multiple times (this was after it took the nurses four times to get an IV going … Sorry I keep harping on this, I’m trying hard for those sympathy points) and then carving up my foot like a Thanksgiving turkey (actually, I’m not sure what he did, I declined to watch).
So, here I am, on a 48 hour cycle of fluid antibiotics and facing another week away from the office with the prospect of teleworking for another half week. I know I work in the basement and in a cube but I really miss my co-workers and actually being in the studio (I also miss my 30” Apple Cinema HD display).
But, I am most thankful for my family, my adopoted and married blood (which I have seen much of my own this past week) for their support, kindess, and patience. Unfortunately, I find that when we are most thankful is when we are most humbled. Having such a malady, though not life-threatening but still very inconvenient, makes you appreciate the people in your life who will jump at a moment’s notice to help you in any way you can imagine.
I also appreciate the staff at URMC, everyone has been absurdly kind, something I doubt I could find to this degree if were sitting in a hospital in the District. So, I guess this experience makes me, however much we tend to pan it, appreciate my hometown and the people there that still retain its charm, grace, and selfless compassion.
I believe taking this action is going to help my get back on my feet much faster than holding the course I was on (hey, I got a four mile race at the end of the month to run). Special thanks to those who have expressed their thoughts and prayers (you know who you are you well-wishers) and especially my wife who flew on few hours notice despite her aversion to being thousands of feet in the air.
