Advertisement
Published: September 17th 2007
Although I appear to have won the latest battle with the cockroaches, I have no illusions that I was won the war! It's been over a week since more than one dead cockroach or ant has appeared in the kitchen or elsewhere. I did notice yesterday that there were lots of mosquitos in the apartment along with a few moths and some other small un-identifiable bugs. I wasn't too worried until I was awoken from my nap by a sharp sting on the ankle. It hurt, but I didn't see anything at first glance so I just went back to sleep. I woke up about an hour later in a lot of pain. I looked at my ankle and it was huge with a big red spot where there was a clear puncture wound! I iced it and took some ibuprofen, both of which helped a little. Later in the evening, I saw two huge (OK maybe 1" long, but that's still pretty freakin' big) wasps flying out of my bathroom so I'm thinking they were sent by the cockroachs to extract revenge. I never get bitten by bugs and I'm not allergic to much of anything so this is a bit unusual.
It was still painful this morning and even more swollen. My ankle bones have disappeared! I managed to get a shoe on and went to work. I showed it to one of the doctors who said that I was having an allergic reaction to some kind of bug bite. Really??? Anyway, he recommended two drugs to take so I went off to the chemist. I asked for three Avil (antihistimines) and six dexamethasone (steroid) tablets. The pharmacist said that the Avil required a prescription from a doctor so I told him that Dr. Ashish had written out the list for me and that was apparently good enough because I got my drugs! All totaled, it cost me 5 rupees or 12 cents!
I came home and took one of each pill and then slept for almost two hours with my foot up on the back of the futon. The swelling went down some, but is now right back up since I've been walking around. It is still pretty painful so I'm hoping for some significant improvement overnight. I'm due for another steroid at bedtime so that should help. I had trouble sleeping last night since any pressure hurts and it was hard to find a way to sleep without any pressure on my foot. I think I'll try two Tylenol PMs at bedtime since the Benadryl in them should help me sleep and also help my foot.
Another day, another (mis)adventure!!!
20 Sep 2007 Update: The antihistimines and steroids weren't really helping so another doctor at work added an antibiotic the next day. That cost me 128 rupees (about $3). By today, however, the bite mark was clearly infected and the doctors decided I needed to go to the hospital and have it cut and drained. I didn't like the sound of that, but I really didn't like the look of my leg either.
Vijay took me to the hospital and it was, of course, an ordeal to get through the bureaucracy, but the doctor I finally saw was a woman and very nice. Vijay wanted to come in with me, but I declined. Dr. Meenakshi took one look at my bite, sqeezed it just a little (at which point I about fell off the clair) and said it needed to be drained and cleaned. She could do it right then so I agreed. The doctor said that she needed Vijay's permission to do anything and I said that she didn't. She said OK. When I went out to tell Vijay I was headed to the out-patient surgery area, he said we needed to call Bharat for permission first. I got annoyed and said that it was my leg and I knew what was best for me. He wasn't too happy and called Bharat anyway, but I was already headed down to the surgical area when he did. The bed that had me wait on was none too clean, but the operating room seemed OK. The doctor was very good and she wore a mask and gloves, although the nurses helping her did not. They were all bare foot! The local anesthetic shots hurt, especially the second shot which I swear she put right in the middle of the lump. One of the nurses had to hold me down during that one. The shots worked pretty quickly and my foot was numb. After that I only felt pressure. It took her a while to clean it out and she was surprised how deep it was. She couldn't close it so she packed it and I have to get the packing changed every other day for about a week. She sent a sample of the pus to the lab and gave me a different antibiotic and pain killers and one sleeping pill. She wrapped and taped and it's not too bad, but it's starting to hurt as I sit here. It's better when it's up on the back of the couch. The whole thing cost me about 2,000 rupees or $50.
22 Sep 2007 Update: I call Dr. Meenakshi this morning at 10:15am and she told me to come in at 11:00am. She said she'd be there until 12:30pm today. I then called Vijay and asked for the car. He told me Friday that I could have the car whenever I needed it as did Bharat. Vijay said I had to wait until 11:45am since the car was unavalable. I told him that was a problem, but he said I had no options. I called EasyCab, but they had no cars available so I had to wait. The car, of course, didn't show up at 11:45am so I called Vijay again and he, of course, said "it was on its way". I told him that I had to be at the hospital by 12:30pm and he said "don't worry". I wasn't the nicest to him, but he didn't seem to get the urgency! I called again at 12:05pm when the car still wasn't here and he said it was at the front gate. I started walking towards the front gate at my slow and hobbled pace. The car was there and we headed off to the hospital.
When I got to the hospital, I went to the desk where I needed to check in. They sent me back to the lab to get the lab results from my pus sample. The lab report wasn't ready and they wanted me to wait "30 minutes" (which could mean 30 minutes and could mean four days), but it was already 12:25pm and I didn't want to miss Dr. Meenakshi. I went back to the desk and gave them an update. Just then, Dr. Meenakshi came out and saw me. She told me to go into the treatment room so she could do her thing.
She came in with a nurse. Neither of them washed their hands or wore gloves, but they had me lay down on a bed with a linen sheet that wasn't the cleanest I've ever seen and cut off the old bandage. It hurt when they took some kind of tape off. They washed it with something that was cold and stung. I kept telling myself not to look, but I couldn't resist and took a peek. MISTAKE! I saw the incisison which is about an inch or so long. It's horizontal along the top of my foot and will hopefully end up in the crease between my foot and my leg and it will probably be a nice not-so-little scar. It's all still pretty red and raw looking and the area is still raised. Dr. Meenakshi said t looked like it should look and that she wasn't worried. She removed the packing and repacked it which hurt and burned like crazy. The nurse held my leg down and it was probably all over in about two or three minutes, although it felt like an eternity. They banaged me all up again and told me to come back every other day to have the dressing changed. Dr. Meenakshi gave me three more days worth of pain killers (good stuff - Ruth, I'd share if I could!) and told me to stay on the antibiotics which I'll take for a week total.
I told her I'm going to Goa in a week and asked if I'd be fine by then. She said that I would which is good because I'm going anyway and no matter what! So, I have at least Monday and Wednesday and maybe Friday to look forward to repeating this process. Woo Hoo!
26 Sep 2007 Update: I went back today for a dressing change and easily found my usual nurse who is very nice. She told me to go ahead into the treatment room and get on the table. I went inside, but there were two guys changing a lightbulb and half the ceiling was on the floor. I went back outside and told her. She told me to wait 10 minutes so I decided to see if my pus culture lab report was ready. I went to the lab and it indeed was. The result: staphylococcus aureus! Iwas pretty freaked out, but the two women I was with said it was very normal here, everyone gets them, no big deal, etc. I took the report back to the nurse who looked at it and then went to find Dr. Meenakshi whom I was not scheduled to see. The nurse put me in a different room and Dr. Meenakshi came in to take a look at me. She did my dressing change (with gloves) and said everything looked good. I took a peek and it does look much, much better than Saturday. It's still open, but clearly healing. The swelling is gone except in the immediate area and my ankle bones are both back. Dr. Meenakshi had apparently not seen my lab report - it was up to me to get it to her which I didn't know or I may have waited on Saturday or gone to get it on Monday! The antibiotics I have been on for the last week will not help a staph infection! She changed my prescription to Cpiro and gave me another five days worth of medicine. She didn't seem terribly worried about it so I'm also trying not to worry about it either (with some success). I go back on Friday for one more look. Hopefully, I can "graduate" to bandaids at that point, but if I can't, they will give me supplies so I can do the dressing changes myself while I am in Goa. No swimming for me! Even wading a bit may be out, at least for my right foot. Oh, well - at least I will be at the beach!
Funny story: My antibiotics today cost 97 rupees. I gave the man a 100 rupee note and he gave me back a 2 rupee coin and an antacid tablet! Apparently, this is what they use when they don't have 1 rupee coins!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0672s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
