Pain and Infection

In a couple of prior entries I have mentioned my headaches and my jaw hurting. Things have gotten a little bit out of control today. I didn’t sleep at all last night because of the pain, so first thing this morning I saw Celinde and then called my dentist and got their emergency service. (I could tell that I wasn’t feeling well when the first thing my brother said to me when he saw me was “Wow – you look like shit”.) Based upon what Celinde and the on-call dentist told me I likely have some kind of big abscess under the one tooth that I have capped. The on-call dentist prescribed vicodin for pain and an antibiotic called clindamycin to deal with the infection. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any dentist that was open. So I won’t be able to see a dentist until Monday morning. Within the last hour the entire left side of my neck and face has started to swell. That is not fun. My concern is that this could be a major infection as I am now starting to run a fever of over 100. I do not want to get an infection going in my blood stream – as that is one of the things that contributed to Patty’s death. If things get substantial worse (i.e. my face starts turning colors or my fever goes about 101.5) I will go to the ER. I have a high pain tolerance level so the fact that the pain is so bad that I can barely handle it is troubling. On top of that the pain is breaking through the vicodin. I don’t like taking pain meds and the only reason I decided to take this was because my pain was so bad it was making me cranky. When I get cranky I end up taking it out on Zack – which is not good.

(Yeah - I know this is probably the best picture of myself that I have ever posted. Zack took an OK picture. The problem is the subject is so ugly.)

What bothers me the most about a situation like this is Zack and how he feels about it. The first question he asks me when he knows I feel bad is “Are you going to live Dad?” When Patty was in the hospital undergoing her bone marrow transplant and I had to go to the oncologist for the follow up appointments to their misdiagnosis of lymphoma – I always tried to avoid telling Zack where I was going. Patty and I were brutally honest with him about Patty’s situation with her leukemia. But when it came to having Patty being ill and me not feeling good or having to have some kind of doctor’s appointment I usually didn’t tell Zack until I was sure things were OK. I didn’t want him feeling like he was going to be an orphan – because trust me, back in the day of his major anxiety, he used to ask me about that a lot. The other tough thing about the situation is no matter how bad I feel, I need to take care of that little boy. Even with the way I am feeling I still had to make him dinner. At least to write the blog I can lie on the couch, but for most of the Zack related things – I have to get up and do some kind of work. But he is more important than me - I just want him to be healthy and happy.

I will also call Bonfils tomorrow morning and let them know about my situation. I don't want them giving my platelets and plasma to some one who could then get pick up an infection from me. The picture I included was a close up of the swelling on my face. If you look you can see my left side is definitely larger than the right side. Well – thanks for listening to me whine. Yep – I am whining and I hope I haven’t upset my readers by doing so. Thanks and peace to all!