My spider bite turned out to be a lot more than just that. Yesterday (Sunday) I was at training for work for about 6 hours and most of that time all I could think about was how bad my leg was hurting. Moving it at all sent pain shooting in all directions. When I got home I decided that I needed to go get it checked out. Due to the fact that my health insurance is for Kaiser Permanente in Sacto, I wasn't sure how to go about getting help. There is a KP out here, but its totally seperate from the ones in CA and isn't even a medical facility. So they recommended I go to an urgent care place near by. I went in this morning and got some much needed medical attention. The doctor told me what was really going on: I did in fact get bit by a spider, but then the little bite which normally wouldn't be too problematic got infected with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus -aka- staph. infection. In case you didn't know, thats not good. Well, the staph. infection actually made my little bites turn into abscesses. The main one on my left leg infected another small one right next to it. So they gave me a shot in the butt of antibiotics, and a shot of local anesthetic under each abscess to numb it. Then she pulled out a scalpal and went a-hackin away- well, not exactly hacking, but she had to slice them open to drain them. I decided to watch what she did next- which was stick a big cotton swab in the hole in my leg and swirl it around. grosssssssss! After three cotton swabs it was finally cleaned out and I could clearly see in it. The actual hole-opening is about the size of a dime, but underneath the opening its about the size of a nickel. Then I got another shot under each abscess to keep it numb for awhile since I had to drive and one last shot for Tetanus. Here is the worst part; I started watching but had to turn away because I was so grossed out. She had to stick a long, thin strip of gauze-like stuff into the hole to help soke up an extra goo that might be coming out. It was the nastiest thing ever watching her take a piar of tweezers and shove it into the hole in my leg. Then she wrapped it up and sent me on my way. She wrote out a perscription for antibiotics and Vicodin- so I'm set for awhile. My bum still hurts from the shot and moving my leg hurts quite a bit too.
There is another spot on my right leg, right below the knee that I told her about and she said it was just infected, but not with staph. But I really am pretty sure its another abscess because it feels exactly like the others and is continuing to hurt more. I have to go back on Wednesday to get the gauze removed and I will ask them to look at it again. $10 says I'm right and it's another abscess. We will see. In the meantime my big concern is showering- or more like sponge bathing- and I have two soccer games on Wednesday; hopefully the pain has subsided by then. My last concern is how I got the staph infection. Usually they are picked up in hospitals or gyms or something of the sort- but where could I have gotten it?? I was giving my mom all the details about what had happened after I left the doctors this morning and she is almost positive that I picked it up in the house- most likely from the bathroom that I share with my disgusting roommate Aaron. So now I get to scrub the shower with bleach and use sanitary wipes before I touch anything. Awesome. Here are the pictures:
This I took early this morning before I went to the Urgent Care Center. It's a close up of the main abscess, but you can see the smaller one on the upper left.
This was right after she cotton swapped all the gunk out of the open abscess. It's starting to fill up with blood again and you can see the other abscess bleeding- yummy. She didn't swab the smaller one but she did squeeze it- that hurt!
and here I am all bandaged up. I didn't get one of her stuffing it full of gauze because my mind was...well, I was freaking out a little bit.
The good news about all this is that I don't have to wear a skirt and tights for the rest of training!!!! And I will finally get some sleep now that I have Vicodin.
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