bring the noyz

I think something bit me.

I don’t know what it was. I only hope that it was big, mean and ugly. Or at least two out of three.

Otherwise I will be really pissed that I’ve spent about the past hour and a half waiting at a nearby minor emergency clinic.

This past Friday I noticed I had a small bump on my right knee, like a mosquito bite.

Except maybe a little nastier.

By Sunday afternoon it was swollen to about the size of a dime, red and warm to the touch. Today the redness and bump is at least as the size of a quarter and it’s growing. If you look at it from the proper angle it appears as though my kneecap has grown a kneecap. There is a painful feverish warmth extending an inch and a half or so out from that. My entire knee has this kinda dull burning constant ache.

This afternoon I showed one of our school nurses. Without trying to alarm me (you've all heard that tone of voice in medical professionals before) she recommended I talk to my doctor, sooner rather than later.

I called my doctor’s office and described the previously mentioned symptoms to whomever it was that I was speaking with on the phone. Without regard to whether I was alarmed or not (which was in fact somewhat alarming) I was instructed to go to the emergency room or a minor emergency clinic, again sooner rather that later as apparently my symptoms cannot wait until later in the week to see my doctor.

It would make me angry to learn that I was given medical advice by his receptionist. My gut feeling however, tells me that is likely what happened.

So now I am sitting in the exam room at the nearby minor emergency clinic. Cash or credit card upon service as they don’t take my insurance. Blasted insurance! I could have gone to the ER to use my insurance but the savings of money versus the cost of three or four hours of my time and hassle of an urban ER just didn’t add up.

Sure, it's fun to sit there for hours reading old magazines and religious pamphlets, waiting along with the indigent, desperate, and sometimes arrested to be treated for various injuries and ailments.

But not that much fun.

Or so it seemed an hour and a half ago when I walked through the door of this clinic. Now I'm starting to wonder.

So I am waiting for some doctor who doesn’t know me from Adam (and likewise in reverse so I just have to assume the doctor is knowledgable and trustworthy) to come in and look at my knee.

For some reason I am reminded of that scene in "The Meaning of Life" where the British officer wakes up in the morning and is told by the doctor that something, presumably a tiger (“a tiger. . . in Africa?”) bit off his leg during the night.

We shall see, my dear reader, we shall see.
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Okay, maybe nothing bit me.

"Cellulitis. Caused by something. Don't know exactly what."

That's basically what the doctor told me. It probably started out as a little unnoticed scratch and some nasty opportunistic bacteria moved right in. . . and are building a condo complex. Damn microbial squatters.

The doctor also said something about having a staph infection. She also mentioned something about the possibility of it being MRSA, an antibiotic resistant superbug, but at least the tone of her voice was not alarming.

She gave me a couple different types of antibiotics and sent me on my way.

Then she said something about me maybe having to come back in a couple of days so that they could slice the bump open and drain the pus.

Fucking great.

Ah well, all this for exactly one dollar and thirty cents more and about half the time than if I had gone to the ER.

And it was the first day of school. It's going to be a great year.
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