Invincibility!
Well not any more. I woke up one day and welts were forming, then disappearing, then appearing in other places. Itchy. So it was time to make a trip over to the Dermatology Clinic and see Dr. Srinavasan.
"You have hives", he said. Are you allergic to... and the list went on. The answer was "No, never had any allergies except to amoxicillin, but now I felt like I looked more like a poster child/senior for an anti-leprosy campaign.
The explanation was that you just have to wait it out. High doses of Allegra every day to calm things down and reduce the itching and blister weeping, and come back in a month.
Well Allegra certainly helped, but it was being helpless that really stings. Things started to get slowly better, but last Thursday a new nasty patch appeared on my right calf. Extra lotion on that one to make it go away, but it continued to fester.
Friday night came and it was time to go to bed and my leg was very stiff. When I took my pants off the leg was swollen so much I couldn't bend it much at the knee. The patch looked awful and Vickie was clearly worried, so at 10 PM on a Friday night it was time to hit the Salem Hospital Emergency room.
It was full of families with kids.
There was a mom, with a daughter about 8 who was vomiting, but mom thought that it was because she was having a migraine, probably her first. Mom said she had migraines since she was a kid.
Another couple with a curled up boy in a blanket, while the other brothers tried to amuse themselves with some toys, and stayed well behaved.
There were TV screens, set to the Disney channel. It became clear that was because this was not an unusual night. It was Disney channel all the time. For the kids.
Sure, there were some teens there in softball garb; someone got hurt playing. There were adults, one guy with a busted up hand. Then a woman with a deep cut and a towel soaked with blood and a man with her who just seemed like he may have had a part in the deep cut.
But still kids came in with mom and dad. It had the appearance of people who did not have a primary care support system, and still depend on the Emergency Room.
There was an ambulance crew with what appeared to be a homeless guy, who knew his way around, and just eventually walked out. There was a security altercation outside with a woman who was ushered into the chapel, as police were called. And the kids watched as they could, though most seemed to miss the import of what was going on.
It was about 2:45 am before my turn came up after most of the families had been seen. As I was taken back to ER POD 1, we asked the nurse about the amount of kids and she said it was like that much of the time.
Once I got into the POD, the nurses swung into gear and started the workup. Around 3:15 Doctor Pak came in, did his piece, and ordered a big shot of Prednisone and a big shot of Benadryl. I was amazed that I could literally watch the swelling decrease and the giant hive patch start to change around the edges. I also started to drift to sleep, a pleasant side benefit of the Benadryl.
It was 4 am when the swelling went down enough, I got released, and the waiting room was mostly empty. I asked the orderly who wheeled me out about all the kids. He said, "Some of these folks just don't know that all they need to do is give the kid a Tylenol."
I think it's because they don't have a regular doctor they can call. Maybe they can't afford one. Maybe they can't get insurance because they're illegal.
But they do know there is a place they can go. And they do care about their kids.
Comments
Post a Comment