This & That

All of your compliments have made Monsiur Sock Heel swell with pride.  Hopefully he will still fit - hee.  For those of you who asked, it is a garter stitch short row heel.  I know the photographs made it look like reverse stockinette.  The great thing about a garter stitch short row heel is you still wrap the stitches, but you don't need to pick up the wraps and knit them.  The garter stitches totally hides them.  Woot!  This has much to do with my success with my first time knitting this heel...this and the fact that Lucy taught me.

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Back in this entry I said, "Perhaps this is hellacious acres - where admission is free, but you pay to get out" (Who can tell me where that is from?)Deb correctly identified this as from a song in the movie A STAR IS BORN - the remake with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

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Okay.  It's time for a cute dog pic!

This is from my (blogless) friend, Fern, in Malaysia.  Her wonderful dog Lucky modeling her handknit bag.  Lucky seems to have something in common with Otis.

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I promised in my last entry to tell you something funny that happened at with the doctor at the wound center during my last visit. 

A little background...

My trip to the ER when I suspected I had contact dermatitis (because I am allergic to all adhesives used on bandages, medical patches, tape, etc.) and a secondary infection brought me face to face with a doctor I've known from the past.  I think it is safe to say he graduated somewhere at the bottom of his medical school class - if you know what I mean. 

He took a look at me, noticed that I am a larger-than-averaged sized gal and proceeded to prescribe the correct antibiotic (Keflex) in a gigantic dose that probably would have cured an elephant of elephantitis.  I almost called my primary care physician to double check the large dosage, but I decided to give the ER doc the benefit of the doubt (having never had this type of condition/wound before.)

Most women are familiar with the side effects of normal doses of antibiotics.  It can give us a nasty yeast infection, that makes you want to scratch your crotch in public. In case you don't know, yeast infection itches like hives on speed.The fact that this doctor gave a DOUBLE the normal dose of Keflex gave me the yeast infection from hell.

The absolute worst was it caused a yeast infection to form a ring around the outer edge of each leg wound. Oh my heavens.  There is no way to describe the insane itching this caused. I briefly wondered how one would sterilize a knitting needle so I could slip it inside the bandage and scratch, scratch, scratch. I made a call to the wound care center and my most helpful nurse consulted the doctor on staff that day, and a prescription cream was called into the pharmacy.  We could cool the itch for a few hours by undoing the bandages, wiping the yeast areas with sterile water, patting them dry and applying the cream.  Sometimes I had to wake my husband in the middle of the night because the intense itching was agony.

If I didn't have great self control, with the help of locked kneecaps that make it less easy to maneuver my legs into a position to BE scratched, I would have scratched myself until I bled. This was an all consuming itch. You know like when your thong rides up so far it begins to cut off the circulation to the "good parts" and you are forced to dislodge that sucker even if you ARE standing in the middle of the grocery check-out line?

The gigantic antibiotic dosing was finally coming to an end, and I capped it off with some Diflucan (pill to treat systemic yeast) that I always have on hand thanks to my helpful primary doc. No, I do not have diabetes (for those who know that yeast is a major side effect of uncontrolled diabetes.) I have a compromised immune system. Things began to calm down greatly after that.

Okay...now the funny part...

The doctor was young, arrogant and obviously well-versed in the mechanics of wound care that is normally resistant to healing.  (The average healing time for wounds like mine is months - they managed it in less than TWO WEEKS!)

However young, arrogant doctor studies the darkening red circles around the wound and says, "You still have contact dermatitis.  What has been rubbing the wound?"  (Alluding to tape, or in this case something moving in concentric circles...um...an alien space craft perhaps?)

Happy nurse and I tried to tell him it was yeast, not contact dermatitis, that the wound was being covered by sterile gauze wrapped around my leg with tape applied only to the gauze - not to my leg. He insisted it was contact dermatitis. Happy nurse relayed my earlier phone call, the over dosing of antibiotics, the subsequent yeast outbreak and the prescribing of cream by his colleague.

He insisted it was contact dermatitis.  By now Happy Nurse is rolling her eyes off to the side of the room.

I stupidly tried my hand at convincing him, by telling him how it looked before treatment. Red, shiny with whitish spots and horrific itching - all consistent with yeast infection. Not to mention my long history of yeast infection following antibiotics, made worse by a compromised immune system.

He was not impressed.  He could not resist one last parting shot..."It's contact dermatitis!" he said as he shut the door.

Hmmm. Maybe I should have shown him the "contact dermatitis" under my ample breasts, and inside my vajayjay (as Dr. Miranda Bailey says on Grey's Anatomy.)  How's that for too much information?

It's okay.  Just like a surgeon, you aren't paying them for their sparkling bedside manner, but their skills with a scalpel.  Likewise I was not paying Doctor Contact Dermatitis for his knowledge of yeast infections, but his more-than-superb knowledge of wound care and subsequent healing.

I can't help but wonder how he treats wounds that are caused by yeast overgrowth, like say around a stoma/pouch situation...but I don't have that condition, and I will just leave that to the ones who do.

The good news...my leg wounds are healed!  One more follow up visit in two weeks.  Hopefully my "contact dermatitis" will be healed up by then too - heh.

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If you are still with me, there is additional knitting.  Many of you will look at this picture, and correctly identify the work-in-progress. This will lead you to guess who else has been visiting my house...