Swimming Pool was emptied

I've had a really rough couple of days - and doesn't that always happen on a weekend?!!

The rippling pond in my chest continued to grow - must have been from the heavy downpour we had here in Tucson - nasty weather, nasty humor. I need sunshine!

And with the rippling pond, and the leaking all over my nightshirt and bed clothes (does anyone say 'bed clothes' anymore??), came pain. Heavy pain. More than I've felt since this whole adventure started!

As I described it to the doctor yesterday, it felt like an elephant sat on my chest and broke all my ribs. It was excruciating to try to sit up or lay down, to move at all. You who know me know I have an extremely high tolerance for pain. I don't whimper. I was whimpering. Pain meds didn't touch it. And of course with that kind of pain, I couldn't sleep, which just made it worse.

When I tried to get up Monday morning, and it was just as bad, I called the doc. Naturally, my sweet Dr. K was out sick, but the office was kind enough (I was rather pushy) to let me see one of her associates.

I know now that I really am getting older - this young man doesn't look old enough to be out of high school!!! But he has credentials up the yingie, so, OK, I can live with that.

I was hoping that the remedy for the pain would be as 'simple' as getting all the fluid out of my chest. We did that. Fifteen syringes full of it.

He said the fluid looked OK, not infected. But he had pulled off all the remaining steri-strips sealing the wound, and found another couple areas of dead skin. He debrided those areas and cleaned up the whole mess and bandaged me up again. Prescribed a heavier pain med, and more antibiotics, because there are still signs of infection around the wound.

We stopped on the way home to get the scripts filled, plus restocked my best pain med, Jack Daniels, and some Tylenol PM to insure that I could get some sleep.

I leaked all over everything again last night, but that's OK - better on the sheets than in the body! Today, after a good night's sleep, I feel a whole lot better. The pain has faded some, I'm not sloshing, and the sun is back. Things are looking up!!