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Elbow adventures
Oct. 17th, 2010 09:53 pmI woke up Saturday and in the early afternoon I noticed I had a lump on my left elbow. It was about the size of half a ping pong ball, and didn't hurt at all. I wrote it off as a random injury that I didn't remember getting, and headed out to the Little 5 Points Halloween parade.
By the time the parade was over, it had started to hurt a bit. Not "Oh god, the pain!" hurt, just "If I poke it here, it hurts" pain. I went about my day and made a mental note to go to the urgent care clinic Sunday morning. I went off to a friends housewarming party and enjoyed the night. Fire spinning takes on a neat new feeling when it is one person spinning in a backyard to acoustic guitars instead of 30 people spinning to crappy dubstep.
I got home before midnight and by this point my arm had upgraded to hurting in any position and being extra hurty when it had weight on it, moved or got bumped. I also started to get a bit of the chills. My plan was upgraded to going to the urgent care place close to my house at 8am when they opened. I had some leftover hydrocodone that took the edge off the pain, but the lump was now bright red and the swelling was spreading beyond the elbow area.
I woke up at 6am when the painkillers wore off and things started to be extra hurty. I gobbled the last pain pill and headed back to bed. I only got about another three hours sleep, and at around 9am I woke up and headed to the clinic.
At the clinic they took my vitals, and my blood pressure read as dangerously low. I started to feel like I was going to pass out. Sounds started to feel like they were coming from far away, and I felt nauseated. My BP read at something like 70 over 45. Then it came up to 90 over 70. The clinic people said they could not treat me, and that I should go to the ER. Maria was kind enough to drive me to Dekalb Medical Center.
I checked into the ER. My blood pressure was out of the dangerous zone, so they started treating my elbow. The original golf ball sized swelling was now covering an area the size of my palm, heading down my arm towards my hand. IV attempt #1 resulted in a blown vein and blood squirting over the room. IV attempt 2 was more successful, but resulted in the return of woozy pass-out feelings. They took 4 x-rays, which are digital now, and sent me back to the room.
They moved me to the hall and a comfy gurney and gave me a big dose of IV antibiotics. Then they brought another doc in for a consult and he set up another course of antibiotics. They drew a big line around the infected area and wrapped my arm in an immobilizing sling. Finally, after 5 hours there they sent me home. I stopped off for dinner with Maria and picked up my meds. I'm now on two antibiotics and some groovy painkillers. Tomorrow I get to go see an ortho doc and see if the big red patch has grown.
So that was my day: eight hours at two different clinics, four antibiotics, a bunch of hydrocodone and an arm immobilizer that goes from bicep to fingertips. The tentative diagnosis is cellulitis of the elbow and/or an infection of the bursa. The most annoying part is I have absolutely no idea how this happened. There are no visible bites, injuries, cuts or bruises on my elbow. Tomorrow I head to an ortho to see if things are any better or worse.
Much thanks go to Maria, who drove me to the ER when I was almost passing out, then stayed with me all day. Also thanks to Luke and Allen who got my car home.
By the time the parade was over, it had started to hurt a bit. Not "Oh god, the pain!" hurt, just "If I poke it here, it hurts" pain. I went about my day and made a mental note to go to the urgent care clinic Sunday morning. I went off to a friends housewarming party and enjoyed the night. Fire spinning takes on a neat new feeling when it is one person spinning in a backyard to acoustic guitars instead of 30 people spinning to crappy dubstep.
I got home before midnight and by this point my arm had upgraded to hurting in any position and being extra hurty when it had weight on it, moved or got bumped. I also started to get a bit of the chills. My plan was upgraded to going to the urgent care place close to my house at 8am when they opened. I had some leftover hydrocodone that took the edge off the pain, but the lump was now bright red and the swelling was spreading beyond the elbow area.
I woke up at 6am when the painkillers wore off and things started to be extra hurty. I gobbled the last pain pill and headed back to bed. I only got about another three hours sleep, and at around 9am I woke up and headed to the clinic.
At the clinic they took my vitals, and my blood pressure read as dangerously low. I started to feel like I was going to pass out. Sounds started to feel like they were coming from far away, and I felt nauseated. My BP read at something like 70 over 45. Then it came up to 90 over 70. The clinic people said they could not treat me, and that I should go to the ER. Maria was kind enough to drive me to Dekalb Medical Center.
I checked into the ER. My blood pressure was out of the dangerous zone, so they started treating my elbow. The original golf ball sized swelling was now covering an area the size of my palm, heading down my arm towards my hand. IV attempt #1 resulted in a blown vein and blood squirting over the room. IV attempt 2 was more successful, but resulted in the return of woozy pass-out feelings. They took 4 x-rays, which are digital now, and sent me back to the room.
They moved me to the hall and a comfy gurney and gave me a big dose of IV antibiotics. Then they brought another doc in for a consult and he set up another course of antibiotics. They drew a big line around the infected area and wrapped my arm in an immobilizing sling. Finally, after 5 hours there they sent me home. I stopped off for dinner with Maria and picked up my meds. I'm now on two antibiotics and some groovy painkillers. Tomorrow I get to go see an ortho doc and see if the big red patch has grown.
So that was my day: eight hours at two different clinics, four antibiotics, a bunch of hydrocodone and an arm immobilizer that goes from bicep to fingertips. The tentative diagnosis is cellulitis of the elbow and/or an infection of the bursa. The most annoying part is I have absolutely no idea how this happened. There are no visible bites, injuries, cuts or bruises on my elbow. Tomorrow I head to an ortho to see if things are any better or worse.
Much thanks go to Maria, who drove me to the ER when I was almost passing out, then stayed with me all day. Also thanks to Luke and Allen who got my car home.
