Medical wasteland

Surprise, my wound got infected! I had a special trip back to the Derm surgeons today to have my wound drained, clutured, cleaned and then stitched again. I got some yummy liquid grape flavored antibiotics since I still can't swallow pills I have to take 20ml twice a day, it's quite a lot of liquid grape medicine. I'm just happy that it is at least flavored unlike my daily meds that need to be crushed and taste like chalk. While I was talking I asked if the pathology report came back, totally expecting the worst but they seemed cautiously optimistic that they got all of it! I will get a copy of the report tomorrow when I have to go in again. I am very happy. They seemed to be a little concerned, so my next scans will check lymph node activity but for today I am slightly reassured that it hasn't metastasized rapidly or something crazy.

I love it when Doctors talk percentages and sastictics to me, I find it hysterical. The melanoma is at a 92% cure rate and that makes me happy but I asked what happens to the other 8% because I have kind of noticed this trend with me and rare side effects. Then we talked about the antibiotic and its rare one in a million chance of causing a severe rash that could burn your skin so much so that it could start falling off and I started laughing hysterically so much so that I was tearing. They seemed confused and just kept telling how rare that would be but they have seen it before, Im sorry but your telling someone who got an already rare cancer that most people get before the age of 5 that I got at 24 that this side effect is rare. Rare seems to be my normal. I had so many antibiotics in the past two years for infections all the side effects I could write a book! The dr asked just out of curiosity what antibiotics I had taken in the past few years, I responded with the following, ammoxaclin, keflex, clindimycin, cefazolin, ceftaz, flagyl and vancomycin he stopped be before I could finish my list I think he lost his curiosity. I found it so ammusing I actually had to pee I was laughing so hard. I have a new antibiotic to add to my list. I will return tomorrow so they can make sure it still doesn't look so angry and hopefully have most of the sutures removed!

It felt so great to be angry last blog, after I posted I felt so much better and have moved on. Thank you for the supportive emails it feels great that I can express myself, no matter how awful or sarcastic my mood. We are moving, it's a mixed bag of emotions. Our apartment is like a pharmacy. So many medical supplies that I needed to get rid of. I spent days on the phone, I called Dr's without borders,red cross, local organizations, community health centers, so many medical supply places the state. No one would take unused still packaged medical supplies. I'm talking thousands of dollars of unused supplies clean needls, central line kits, heparin, saline, tagaderms, antiseptic wipes, tubing, syringes, tape, gauze, gloves, tpn supplies, pill crushers, gauze. And so much of it the only place that would take it was the humane society. Sad. This is not even including the cases upon cases on infant formula that I did get to donate to a local food bank. The unused medicine took another full day to organize and then dispose of properly. It made Tim and I incredibly sad we had a sea of important basic and sometimes life saving supplies still unopened and no one could use it to help suffering people. I guess we could have helped a few animals, although sadly most of it is waste.

All my love

Mary