so, if you've followed, i've had this lump under my arm, that started out as a tiny little pebble sized lump ohhh sometime last week or so... actually before that, but i finally went to the dr last week for it, because it was so painful. anyway, he thought it could be treated with antibiotics and it would go away.... and low and behold, the thing grew.... not just doubled in size, it was like DISGUSTINGLY huge and disturbing, not to mention EXTREMELY painful, BUT my dr had said to finish the medication and if a few days after the medication it still hadn't gone away, THEN call him.... well, i still had 3 days left of the meds.... i couldn't wait another day. it hurt too bad. i called him and he said, "well it might be a resistant bacteria. i'm going to switch the antibiotics. try the new ones out for 48 hours and call me if it doesn't get any better." i kinda "challenged" him a bit. "don't you think you should at least take a look at it? it's HUGE!" he didn't seem to think he needed to see it.... until i at least TRIED the new medications.... anyway. jason goes and gets the meds on his way home from work. i started them immediately.
night #3 comes.... tuesday night.... horrible night. ugh.
taylor isn't feeling well at all.... begins crying and almost screaming "mommy help me. ouch mommy" she was in pain.... i put a call in to the dr to see if there was anything i could do to relieve her pain until the morning when i could take her into the dr.... but the pain just kept getting progressively worse. her cries were louder. i couldn't STAND to hear her in so much pain. i got her dressed and told jason i was taking her to urgent care. it had to be done. so off to urgent care we went at 8 pm, down to costa mesa, because that one would see children until 9 pm. we got there, they ran some tests and sure enough, she was sick. they knew she needed medicine, so the dr wrote a prescription and told us to go fill it at cvs which was very close by, BUT before i left, i asked her, "can i ask you to look at this lump I have under my arm, and tell me what you think it might be? it has more than quadrupled in size and it hurts so bad it's making me physically ill." she puts on a glove and grabs this baseball sized lump and says, "okay, do you have a husband at home or someone who can watch the kids tonight?" i said, "yes." she said, "okay, i don't mean to alarm you but you need to go to the ER tonight. like... NOW. don't wait." i asked what she thought it could be. she explained that it needed to be drained immediately before it spread in to my blood and infected my entire body.... okay. sounded fair enough to me. too bad they wouldn't do it in the urgent care office. probably would've been a lot cheaper.... i explained to her our new insurance, and she said, "let me put it this way, it'll be a lot cheaper for them to cut it out tonight, then for your hospitalization when it spreads to your bloodstream." OKAY! fair enough! to the ER we go. ha!
came home. jason wanted to go with me. mind you, he had been up since 2 am, and it was now 10 pm. melissa and dustin came over to watch movies while our kiddos slept, and we were in the ER by 11 ish. surprisingly didn't have to wait too long. dr came in and looked and felt and said it needed to come out right then. explained what she would do and how she would cut it open and get all that she could get out of there and so on and so forth and then she would pack the incision with gauze to let it continue to drain for a few days and then have the packing removed. UGH! talk about make my stomach turn. there are a lot of things i can take, but talking about slicing open ME, and packing MY OPEN WOUND with gauze just makes me a tad bit ill feeling.... anyway.... gave me some pain meds. attempted to "numb" the area, which pretty much did not feel numb at all. i did not feel the ENTIRE incision, but i believe i felt every single thing she did post incision. everytime she would get in there to PUSH and squuuueeze on my arm, i felt like i was going to pass out. my chest hurt sooo bad, i couldn't breathe. my heart got all funky and i seriously couldn't breathe. she called for someone, i remember that, and i remember jason calling my name over and over again. i tried telling him i was okay, but my chest hurt. i just remember them counting and lifting and moving me and pushing me in to some other room where they hooked me up to another heart machine to monitor my heart.... MAN it hurt!!!! they had to stabilize all that before they could continue.... i guess what they concluded was that the lump was so big, it was pressing against nerves and an artery that was going to my heart.... as sooon as she hit the BIG part of the lump, and got blood out of it, it was almost like i could instantly breathe again.... the pressure on my chest almost IMMEDIATELY went away.... it still hurt, but it wasn't as excruciating as it had been just seconds before.... poor poor jason. i HATE him being RIGHT there when i have anything medical going on. the last thing i want to do is to scare him, but he is definitely the person i want there for my comfort... kind of a catch 22 , right?
anyway.... arm is wrapped. we were sent on our way.... got home and to bed shortly after 4 am.... poor honey, awake for 26 hours! ugh!
going tomorrow for them to fix it up and pull out that nice "packing." yum. can't wait for that.
on a MUCH brighter note, our dr, (actually nurse practitioner) was leaving for a trip sometime soon. i gathered that much from the nurses coming in and out prior to the "surgery" and while they were wrapping me up.... i asked, "where are you going?" she said "i'm going to haiti." i said, "oh wow. how wonderful. do you have any children?" she said she didn't, and that was why she was going.... what a wonderful thing to be doing. which leads me into my next blog.....
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