Medical Time Out
May. 27th, 2012 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeLisa has had a minor infection in her foot for some time now, but last night it started getting worse. It wasn't bad enough to need a visit to the ER, but by this morning, she decided it was bad enough to require a visit to Urgent Care.
This morning, we left the apartment and instead of heading over to BayCon, went to Mountain View, the nearest Palo Alto Medical Foundation Urgent Care clinic. (Lisa has already been to PAMF, which saves considerable effort in the horrible paperwork.) We had to wait around an hour, I guess, but eventually were able to see a nice doctor who examined Lisa's inflamed left toe.
The toe has had a fungal infection for a long time, and topical treatments just really haven't worked. As of last night and into this morning the infection around the toenail had gotten inflamed and painful. The doctor said she didn't have the tools to remove the toenail, which has grown quite thick over the infection. She injected the toe with lidocaine, which was probably the worst part of the experience for Lisa. Lisa gritted her teeth and held my arm every tightly as the needle went in to the poor inflamed toe. Once the area was numbed, the doctor was able to drain some of the pus and pack the toe with antibiotic ointment, then bandage it back up.
She gave Lisa a sandal-like arrangement to allow her to walk out since wearing her shoe would have been too painful, and gave her a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to a podiatrist. We'll have to call PAMF on Tuesday and get an appointment ASAP. Lisa limped out to the curb and I got the car from the parking lot, collected her, and we headed over the Walgreen's to collect the prescription. I explained to the pharmacist that Lisa is sensitive to yellow food dyes, and it turns out that the antibiotic pills contain Yellow #10. The pharmacist hunted around and determined the the liquid form doesn't have yellow dye, so after getting permission from PAMF, she issued Lisa with two bottles of the liquid, which she'll have to take four times per day for the next ten days.
With Lisa's foot hurting so badly, she would have had to stay down here anyway, since she drives a manual transmission pickup and needs both feet to drive. She'll have to stay here at least until we can see a podiatrist and until after she recovers from whatever the doctor does — we assume it will require removing her big toenail.
Because of the time we had to spend at PAMF today, I was unable to attend my scheduled 1 PM panel at BayCon about the Future of Westercon. When we finally did get to the convention, I went and apologized to Programming and to the other panelists, but nobody faulted us for having a family medical emergency.
This morning, we left the apartment and instead of heading over to BayCon, went to Mountain View, the nearest Palo Alto Medical Foundation Urgent Care clinic. (Lisa has already been to PAMF, which saves considerable effort in the horrible paperwork.) We had to wait around an hour, I guess, but eventually were able to see a nice doctor who examined Lisa's inflamed left toe.
The toe has had a fungal infection for a long time, and topical treatments just really haven't worked. As of last night and into this morning the infection around the toenail had gotten inflamed and painful. The doctor said she didn't have the tools to remove the toenail, which has grown quite thick over the infection. She injected the toe with lidocaine, which was probably the worst part of the experience for Lisa. Lisa gritted her teeth and held my arm every tightly as the needle went in to the poor inflamed toe. Once the area was numbed, the doctor was able to drain some of the pus and pack the toe with antibiotic ointment, then bandage it back up.
She gave Lisa a sandal-like arrangement to allow her to walk out since wearing her shoe would have been too painful, and gave her a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to a podiatrist. We'll have to call PAMF on Tuesday and get an appointment ASAP. Lisa limped out to the curb and I got the car from the parking lot, collected her, and we headed over the Walgreen's to collect the prescription. I explained to the pharmacist that Lisa is sensitive to yellow food dyes, and it turns out that the antibiotic pills contain Yellow #10. The pharmacist hunted around and determined the the liquid form doesn't have yellow dye, so after getting permission from PAMF, she issued Lisa with two bottles of the liquid, which she'll have to take four times per day for the next ten days.
With Lisa's foot hurting so badly, she would have had to stay down here anyway, since she drives a manual transmission pickup and needs both feet to drive. She'll have to stay here at least until we can see a podiatrist and until after she recovers from whatever the doctor does — we assume it will require removing her big toenail.
Because of the time we had to spend at PAMF today, I was unable to attend my scheduled 1 PM panel at BayCon about the Future of Westercon. When we finally did get to the convention, I went and apologized to Programming and to the other panelists, but nobody faulted us for having a family medical emergency.
