the last month

Well. It all started when Duncan, our black Lab, jumped onto the couch. In the process, he scratched my leg. That was on a Saturday. No big deal, I thought. It was a small scratch as scratches go--I put a band-aid on it and pretty much forgot about it. I started a trial the following Tuesday morning. By that time, the area around the scratch was red and a bit sore, but by 2:30 pm that day, I was limping pretty badly and still had one more witness to go before I rested. I knew I couldn't wait any longer to go to the doctor's--it looked (and felt) pretty darned awful. The judge and the defense attorney agreed that we could stop for the day, so off I went to pick Elizabeth up at school. We then headed over to the ER. A couple hours later, I was told that they wanted to admit me. I had a bit of a temper tantrum and said, No way! (middle of a trial; child still at daycare, waiting to be picked up; 5 year old here in the hospital with me...). Several phone calls later between my primary care physician, my nephrologist, and the doctor in the ER, it was agreed that I could go home as long as I promised to go in for daily blood tests and to call the minute anything changed for the worse. (Did I mention that my white blood cell count was over 33,000? or that I am a kidney transplant recipient and take medication to suppress my immune system to prevent rejection (with the result of making it harder to fight infections)? this was why everyone was so worried...). In the meantime, I'd called my parents (who live two hours away), who immediately drove down to help out, and Miss Kelly at daycare, who agreed to keep Jack until my parents could arrive and pick him up. In fact, she did even better: she and her husband drove to the ER, picked Elizabeth up, and took both children out to dinner and then home to meet up with my parents. I am blessed by the people who surround me! I was released from the hospital with two new prescriptions and with crutches so that I could walk, and I followed doctors' orders to the letter. That Friday, I had a picc line (which is sort of like an IV) inserted into my arm so that I could give myself IV drugs at home. That stayed in for a week and came out the following Friday. It doesn't stop there, though. I'd only been home for a couple hours when my doctor called to tell me to go to the ER again because my potassium level was dangerously high (7.0). It took me nearly 15 minutes to get out the door because Elizabeth wanted to go with me--she was very worried--but I promised her that I would be home before bedtime (and I almost made it, too). Three hours, more blood tests, an EKG, and yet more medication later, I was finally allowed to go home. I went back to work this past Monday and am still on antibiotics. To top off our week, though, Miss Kelly called me at work on Friday afternoon to tell me that Jack woke up from his afternoon nap with gummy eyes and that another child at daycare had just been diagnosed with conjunctivitis! Elizabeth and I took him to the doctor's on Saturday morning, and he is on meds now, too. Good grief! So, that's why we've been a little quiet for the last few weeks. All is well now, though--thank goodness!