Sick picture

This picture was taken the summer of 2004. It is of my foot. It is the sort of thing that scares me with J itching so much. I think I had athlete's foot that made me itch my foot. I also had a fever at the time (turns out it was Lyme's Disease). Anyway, one evening I itched my foot a whole lot. I had been to the doctor's (the horrid urgent care type) the day before because of days of fever, throwing up, and aching. He said stomach virus, and refused to run the Lyme disease test. When I woke up the next morning (a Sunday), there was a huge bruise on my foot, my eyelid was swollen, and I had a bruise on my forehead.

I called the urgent care doctor on Monday because my foot was really hurting, and he had me go to the emergency room because he wanted some blood tests done for some of my major organs because of the bruising, and he didn't have the ability to run those tests. The ER ran those tests (I was fine) and a Lyme disease test and a rocky mountain spotted fever test. They also put me on an antibiotic for Lyme disease just to be sure. The Lyme disease test came back two days later (Wed) "presumptive positive."

Meanwhile, the bruise was spreading and crawling up my ankle to my leg, and my foot hurt so much it was hard to bear weight. I went back to the urgent care doctor Wednesday night to have him look at my foot, and I told him about the Lyme disease test. He x-rayed my foot, told me it was fine, and said to come back if my symptoms changed.

I thought there was a reasonable chance that I might die because none of this seemed right. I had my annual ob/gyn appointment the next day (Thursday), and I thought that might be my last hope. My ob/gyn is brilliant. I left my sock off, which I don't usually do at her appointments, and she immediately asked me if anyone had brought up cellulitis. I said no one had--not the urgent care doctor and not the ER doctor. She said it was obvious I had cellulitis from both the appearance and the fact that the bruising was hot to the touch. I needed antibiotics for it. I told her I was on some for the Lyme disease. She said those weren't the right kind. I needed Keflex. I asked her what would happen if I did nothing since the night before my urgent care doctor x-rayed it and said it was fine. She said I'd be in the hospital in intensive care pretty soon. I asked her if she'd treat it since my urgent care doctor seemed so incompetent. She made me assure her he had seen it the night before and thought nothing was wrong. She then prescribed the Keflex for me, marked the area that was red in ink so I could see if it shrunk or grew, and gave me a couple recommendations for primary care physicians so I could switch out of the urgent care facility in the future.

My foot cleared up beautifully. The fever and barfing were stopping from the other antibiotics. I saw my new doctor. At that point the cellulitis had cleared up and the skin all peeled off, which she said was normal after cellulitis.

Anyway, this horrid experience has made me scared about excessive itching, so I really want J to not itch. It goes far beyond the appearance of her skin. This was a dangerous infection that could have killed me if left untreated. If it hadn't been for my ob/gyn appointment, I was thinking of calling my kids' pediatrician (another brilliant doctor) and begging him to see me if I paid cash (my insurance would never cover it), or to give me the name of someone really good who would see me quickly for cash since I was scared I'd die before the stupid urgent care doctor bothered to figure out what sort of referral I needed.

The lesson here is never make an urgent care facility your "primary care physician" when you have HMO insurance, which requires a referral to see a different doctor (except for ob/gyn stuff). They just aren't that great.

I called the urgent care facility and left a message for the doctor, telling him what the proper diagnosis was. I never heard back. I saw in the paper about a year later he was promoted to be in charge of a different urgent care facility in the same chain. I thought that was good. I'm hoping the higher position means he won't be seeing patients anymore. In any event, he's now on the other side of the county, where I won't run into him.