A stay in the hospital
Wednesday, July 5:
I came home Monday late afternoon after a two-night stay in the hospital.
The baby is fine -- my hospital stay didn’t have anything to do with the baby, thank goodness. But they put me in the “baby area” along with all the other preggos and new parents.
What happened was I got an infection from a cat scratch (or bite) from my cat when he attacked me early Thursday morning.
I called the vet to ask about my cat’s behavior. He meant to attack one of our other cats. Probably due to lingering testosterone in his system after being neutered, the vet said. The vet also recommended I call my Ob/Gyn about the scratches/bites even though I cleaned and treated them.
I forgot to call until the next day -- Friday -- when one of the scratches/bites started looking red and swollen. A nurse at my doctor’s office told me the scratch was nothing to worry about.
“Oh, I get scratches from my cat all the time,” she said. “The redness goes away after a while. It will be fine. One thing that really helps is if you do dishes.”
Do dishes? “But the scratch is on my ankle,” I told the nurse.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I was thinking because my cat scratches me on the hand, your scratch was on the hand, too.”
What an airhead.
Anyway, on Saturday, my ankle was looking so much worse. Not just red, but purple. And it hurt to walk. I’ll spare you the rest of the yucky details.
JP and I went to the emergency room, where the ER doctor wasn’t impressed that my Ob’s nurse said not to worry about the scratch/bite.
So after IV antibiotics every six hours for a couple days in the hospital -- during which time I was a rather impatient patient and announced I wanted to go home every 12 minutes -- both the elf doctor from my Ob’s office and an infectious disease specialist said I could go home and continue on oral antibiotics.
My ankle still looks bad, and it still hurts to walk.
The first day in the hospital, I kept worrying about what all this was doing to the baby. The staff assured me the antibiotics they were giving me were in a class that wouldn’t pass through the placenta. I kept worrying that the infection would get into my bloodstream and then go to the baby, which is what one nurse said could have happened if I hadn’t come in sooner.
The best part of the whole ordeal is how wonderful JP was to me. He slept on the chair that converts into a bed (very loose interpretation of a bed here), brought me things from home (as well as two new magazines and a Godiva dark chocolate bar), brought us dinner the first night because no one at the hospital offered me so much as a drink of water for nine hours since first visiting the emergency room, and he asked questions and kept a level head when all I could do was worry about the baby and staying the hospital on a holiday weekend. He even cleaned the house.
It was also good to get to know some of the wonderful nurses and PCAs because I’ll be seeing them again in a couple of months when we go to have the baby!
I came home Monday late afternoon after a two-night stay in the hospital.
The baby is fine -- my hospital stay didn’t have anything to do with the baby, thank goodness. But they put me in the “baby area” along with all the other preggos and new parents.
What happened was I got an infection from a cat scratch (or bite) from my cat when he attacked me early Thursday morning.
I called the vet to ask about my cat’s behavior. He meant to attack one of our other cats. Probably due to lingering testosterone in his system after being neutered, the vet said. The vet also recommended I call my Ob/Gyn about the scratches/bites even though I cleaned and treated them.
I forgot to call until the next day -- Friday -- when one of the scratches/bites started looking red and swollen. A nurse at my doctor’s office told me the scratch was nothing to worry about.
“Oh, I get scratches from my cat all the time,” she said. “The redness goes away after a while. It will be fine. One thing that really helps is if you do dishes.”
Do dishes? “But the scratch is on my ankle,” I told the nurse.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I was thinking because my cat scratches me on the hand, your scratch was on the hand, too.”
What an airhead.
Anyway, on Saturday, my ankle was looking so much worse. Not just red, but purple. And it hurt to walk. I’ll spare you the rest of the yucky details.
JP and I went to the emergency room, where the ER doctor wasn’t impressed that my Ob’s nurse said not to worry about the scratch/bite.
So after IV antibiotics every six hours for a couple days in the hospital -- during which time I was a rather impatient patient and announced I wanted to go home every 12 minutes -- both the elf doctor from my Ob’s office and an infectious disease specialist said I could go home and continue on oral antibiotics.
My ankle still looks bad, and it still hurts to walk.
The first day in the hospital, I kept worrying about what all this was doing to the baby. The staff assured me the antibiotics they were giving me were in a class that wouldn’t pass through the placenta. I kept worrying that the infection would get into my bloodstream and then go to the baby, which is what one nurse said could have happened if I hadn’t come in sooner.
The best part of the whole ordeal is how wonderful JP was to me. He slept on the chair that converts into a bed (very loose interpretation of a bed here), brought me things from home (as well as two new magazines and a Godiva dark chocolate bar), brought us dinner the first night because no one at the hospital offered me so much as a drink of water for nine hours since first visiting the emergency room, and he asked questions and kept a level head when all I could do was worry about the baby and staying the hospital on a holiday weekend. He even cleaned the house.
It was also good to get to know some of the wonderful nurses and PCAs because I’ll be seeing them again in a couple of months when we go to have the baby!
posted by Damselfly at 10:30 AM
1 Comments:
Oh, glad you're ok...
Welcome back home.
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