So, last week I had a medical scare. It turned out to be nothing of great significance, but was disturbing before I went to the doctor. It started out with a lump on the back of my neck, just inside the hairline. This was on say Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday it erupted. It oozed. I apologize if you've just eaten. It continued in this vein for a couple of days. Sunday Mama Bird looked at it (again) and the two of us had a discussion on the possible reasons for the ickiness. I thought it might have been an exploded tumor (it's happened before) or a spider bite from a venomous spider (also happened before). Mama Bird thought it was ringworm. We discussed the possible places I could have come across the last two. Monday I noticed that I now had a growing lump lower on my neck, in the back. I went on-line again and figured that my lymph nodes were swollen. The posterior cervical lymph nodes to be exact. So Tuesday morning I called my doctors office and spoke with whoever it is that answers the phone there. I made clear that if MY doctor was unavailable, I would be MORE than happy to see whoever else that might be there. I also told him the three things we thought it may have been. According to him, at the time of the call my doctors day was full, but he'd ask if I could see someone else. Not even twenty minutes later I got a call informing me that my regular doctor would be able to see me 45 minutes later. So I walked over to her office. Yes, I can turn this into a loooonnnggg story. Good news: the prognosis is none of the three choices. It turns out to be a decidedly unhappy hair follicle. Really unhappy. The bad news: I am currently taking clindamycin four times a day, 300 milligrams each time. I have to wake up at 2 am in order to do this. And I can't lie down for at least a half hour after taking it. I read the side effects and was not terribly worried, but didn't know why I couldn't lie down for half an hour. I looked on-line again. I found a site where people were telling their horror stories. I haven't had any of the most noted side effects, but then I have been obsessively good about the half hour rule. Even for the 2 am dose. And that seems to be making the difference.
That's really about it for this week. Oh yeah, I've started bike riding again. Not that that has anything to do with anything.
--Little Bird is on a schedule
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2 comments:
Good to hear it isn't something more serious. What exactly is clindamycin ? Also, never ever try to self diagnose on the Internet, that only leads to more suffering ;), you're doctor is in most cases better suited for this job (and you can blame him if he/she is wrong -g-).
So, the medicine is the cause of extended posting on Failblog in the last days ?
Clindamycin is an antibiotic that can have some seriously nasty side effects. I, luckily am experiencing none of them. Yet.
Self diagnosing via the internet can be a terrifying thing. I wasn't doing it to fix it myself. I did it to see if I needed to make an emergency doctors visit. And because of my condition, I've gotten pretty good at diagnosing whatever ails me. When I told my doc what I thought it was, and the whole foray into lymph nodes she was impressed.
And yes, because I have to take the damned pills every six hours, I tend to post later into the evening now. One of the quirks of the meds are that I cannot lie down for a half hour after taking them. Last night following the 2 am dose, I nearly fell asleep sitting up. But tonight is the last night I have a 2 am dose!! YAY!!
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