The western Pacific islands are notorious for bacterial infections. Despite constant disinfecting one of my many Smurfy scratches got infected while we were working at Simon’s Nature Reserve.
A nasty bug got into my bloodstream, chills, fever and then my knee spontaneously went melonsized.
A day later (July 2) we went back to Honiara, antibiotics IV at BS Medical, ultrasound at Frontier radiology–thanks to all the doctors and nurses who tried their best to help me. When the infection persisted after a week (and most of my veins had been burned and clogged by cloxacillin IVs) we got worried that we were dealing with MRSA resistant bacteria and they don’t have antibiotics for that in the Solomons.
After a call to our insurance I hobbled on the next flight to Brisbane on July 9, took a taxi to the emergency of Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital and was admitted after a few hurdles. Clindamycin antibiotics soon kicked in, but the doctors still recommended surgery to clean the abscess that had formed on my kneecap.
The lovely surgical team played Rage against the machine for me and let me watch the procedure, but I was still surprised that they insisted on a 4 cm incision instead of minimal invasive–maybe they thought a Solomon-style procedure was more fitting for a tough island girl…
I saw the wound for the first time two days after surgery, looking all dry and clean, but huge. Yet another story my scarred, knobbly knee can tell. The new one’s going straight across an old gravel rash from when I was 16 and went too fast around a curve on my moped, to the right the one from when a piece of cliff came off with me in french poly and on the outer left when I slipped from a rock searching for dear little Leeloo in the bush.
I was so happy to be walking almost without a limp when I got out of hospital the same day– half an hour later migraine, nausea, cold sweat. All symptoms disappeared as soon as I lay down and came back when I got back up. Did some reading: cerebrospinal fluid leakage from a needle puncturing the system during a spinal block. Called the hospital, the hospital who said I could come into the emergency and sit there for a few hours to get admitted, or rest at home and call an ambulance if it gets worse. I went for the latter and today it’s getting better. Can’t anything ever be straightforward with me??
