Well crap!! Here I am in the hospital again. I’m actually writing, yes “writing” these notes on November 30th from my hospital bed. It was a bad week heading up to this, but I guess it all really started last Saturday, 25 November. Nening (nickname of our house lady) was helping me put on my compression socks and noticed some redness on my left foot. Also, although I have been wearing my compression socks, that foot was swollen.
Since my last bout with cellulitis, I have been more careful so I decided that if it was still the same in the morning, I would head for the doctor. Well, never made it that far. That evening I started getting chills. For the next 2 days, I was in bed shivering, trying my best to stay warm. I even missed all the Sunday football games because I just didn’t feel like being in the other room on the computer to watch them. Early Tuesday morning, around 1 am, the fever finally broke. The whole side of my bed was wet with sweat and all the linen had to be changed. Later that day I finally ate something. I had not eaten for 2 days. I managed to eat most of a bowl of chicken soup. I also finally got to watch a football game (the Monday Night game). While watching the game, I noticed something that looked like a red rash on my upper left thigh. Thinking that it was just a result of having a fever for 2 days, I, once again said, if it’s there in the morning, to the doctor. It was still there.
So, now it’s Wednesday morning, the rash is still there. I head for my doctor. He works at 2 different hospitals, so he’s not there. It’s 10:00 and he won’t be around until 1:00 pm. I made the decision to wait until 1:00 instead of asking for another doctor. I did this because my current doctor already knows the history of my legs and I thought he’d be able to make a more educated decision. I survived until 1:00 and just as soon as my doctor saw the problem, he knew, same as before. This time it looked worse, at least to me. He said that it was pretty infected and that he was not sure if the strongest antibiotic he had available would be enough. I knew right away that this meant in-patient and lots of intravenous (iv) bottles. Here we go again.
At first, I asked for a semi-private room because I’m not a rich man and those rooms are only P1450 ($29) per night. Then I discovered that there are 2 other people in a semi-private room. I changed my mind. I decided to go with a private room, P2050 ($41) per night. Of course, no private rooms were available, but they did have a Private Suite, P2550 ($51) per night. I went with that on the condition that I be moved to a regular private room when/if one became available. The suite was nice and big. Very cold, but they didn’t exactly think smartly when they put in the air con, bed and furniture. We (Nening, her husband, Titing (also nickname)) moved everything around a couple of time to get it the way we wanted. I figured for $51 per night I could make a few changes to be comfortable.
Christian was the first to visit. He actually got there pretty fast. Later he sent over some food because he saw the fish that they were trying to feed me. He knows I’d rather go hungry than eat fish that is looking at me or any fish really. He sent over some hot & crispy chicken, one of my favorites at his restaurant. Maybe the rooms are not as expensive as in the US, but the medication is not cheap. Plus, you have to bring things from the house if you want them. Like good food, pillows, blankets, extra linen, drinks, slippers, just about everything because it is not included in the price of the room. Which actually makes things a little cheaper because hospital food in the US is expensive and not always that great anyway.
I settled in for a stay that I had no idea how long would be. I anticipated 3-4 days, and I was feeling the strain on my wallet already. The picture is mine and this leg actually looked worse by the time I got to the hospital. All my toes were purple and toes 2 & 3 were swollen.
Salamat Y’all
