Adventures With Periorbital Cellulitis Pt. 2: Relentless Burning the Invader To Death (Prime Suspect: Staphyloccocus aureus)

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pt. 1 here

alternative title: Why I’ve Been Such a Huge Goddamn Bitch Lately

alternative title 2: Why Many Doctors Are Full of Shit

Exhibit A, two days ago immediately after release from the ER: 

Exhibit B, just a few minutes ago, immediately after application of a compress full of scalding hot water: 

Exhibit C, my med cert from that night. Details obscured because even though I hate the people who did this to me, I don’t know what people online might take it into their heads to do if this post were taken out of context. 

 

Roughly the following conversation occurred between me and my mom (a doctor) this morning (it’s very long, with many asides about school so I cut a lot out):

MD: How’s your vision on the right eye? Can you try looking at things while covering the left? 

Me: Vision is all right. It’s just the painful abscess that wouldn’t let me open it. It was so big and the swelling went down so fast that the skin there is now wrinkled oddly if you look closely. 

MD: So it’s small already? If it doesn’t go away by Saturday we need to see Dr. G. 

Me: It goes down fast with the hot compress but flares up again without it. That’s why it’s all I’ve been doing for the past 2 days. With breaks only for sleeping and eating and when my hands get tired. 

Very scary bacteria, this one. Causes lots of diseases all over the body. Something carditis in the heart, osteomyelitis in the bone, sepsis in the blood. Abscesses in the brain if a preseptal infection progresses to orbital. 

MD: I’ll text Dr. G. if what you’re doing is okay

Me: Tell him I check my vision twice a day when I change the dressing and it’s good. And there’s no redness in the surrounding area, so the skin hasn’t been burned. No tenderness also except on the abscess. 

Hm maybe I should email a pic? 

MD: Yes send me the pic. I also talked to Dr. U. He said to use a warm compress only. 

Me: Uh huh. I thought he would say that. But if I don’t do this, I’ll have to be admitted with antibiotic IV because otherwise the abscess grows again very fast. 

MD: It’s not the hot compress that would bring down the swelling completely. It’s the antibiotics. I would really strongly advise you to see Dr. U ASAP. 

Me: I don’t think you’re listening to me. I am taking the antibiotics regularly but unless I put on the compress repeatedly, the abscess grows again. Last night before I slept it had reduced enough that it looked like a stye. This morning when I woke it had grown so much that my eyelid was drooping a bit again. 

MD: That is why you should see Dr. U. Because that is not the expected response. It comes and goes – weird. 

Me: I told you it’s weird. That’s why I got scared. Not responsive to ointments or lacto or anything, only the hot compress

MD: But you are putting the Tobradex and taking Augmentin diba?

Me: Yes I am. Both of those as prescribed. Not responsive. It’s so strong. It should be cultured if possible I am very curious about it. 

It grows extremely fast. In a matter of hours. If I hadn’t gone to the hospital that night I’m sure it would have burst my septum and went to orbital cellulitis then brain abscess after that. 

It’s best if I can be examined at [redacted] because it’s nearest. I think you should get me a referral to a doctor of internal medicine. Ophthas seem to have no knowledge of bacterial infection. They just keep talking about my vision and there’s nothing at all wrong with my vision. 

It was a Dr. Q. who let slip that I should be admitted right before she immediately referred me to the awful ophtha. Her label on the med cert is Emergency Doctor. So that or internal med doctor is what I need. 

MD: Dr. U. is very knowledgeable. He mentioned to me the possibility of you being admitted to give you IV antibiotics. 

Me: Yeah I can tell he is but he’s quite far to see personally. 

MD: If you want pasundo na lang kita tomorrow AM but bring your important stuff in case he advises admission. 

Me: I’ve been eating so many vegetables that I’ve become really grumpy because I don’t like the way they taste. My appetite is much different, I have to force myself to eat. And some things smell much stronger to me now. I suspect there may be a mold or bacteria infestation in our bathroom because it always smells like poop even though no one just pooped and it’s very clean. 

My major symptom right now is grumpiness. 

MD: Your dad will fetch you tomorrow at 7Am and you will go straight to Dr. U. Bring your things in case he advises admission. The side effects of appetite and smell sensitivity are antibiotic side effects. 

 

Rage and Taboos

I’m constantly looking for answers about my behavior, my feelings which occasionally mystify me as much as they mystify other people.

I.

Here’s a tentative answer about my near-constant rage about society and definitely-constant search for love:  

If I was going to write a novel,  I’d write of our societal narcissism, our search for identity– and, more importantly, for excuses why we have certain identities; and the decline of truly meaningful relationships to write a novel about what really keeps us linked to each other.

The operative question would be: if you could be anyone, had unlimited power, what would be the ethical system you use to make choices? Who lives, who dies, who suffers, who doesn’t? How do you decide?

The first element would be Faith. He has to have Faith that he has a superpower, which is to predict the future, in the absence of any definite evidence. The protagonist of my book won’t have any objective evidence that he is right or doing the right thing, he simply will have to believe, to decide, that he’s right. It has to be identical to, say, psychosis. My character would have to both decide he can see the future, and also that it is his responsibility to act on it.

Another element is Rage. When you believe something that no one else believes– especially if you believe you are somehow better, or even different, than others; and if others directly oppose you in this belief, the inevitable consequence is rage. 

The final element is Love. The negating force for Rage. This character will need to identify who he loves, and how to love them.  – The Last Psychiatrist (adapted)

II.

About why horrible things turn me on during masturbation (Which is part of the reason why I consider sex and masturbation as two almost completely distinct and dissimilar activities):

I got curious about why people are sexually aroused by taboo, and I did some theorizing and fact-checking.

It all comes down to your brain being really shitty at knowing what it is feeling at any given time. Since it struggles with this, it often sneaks a peek at what the body is doing and guesses based on that – for example, “Flushed face? Butterflies in stomach? I must be attracted to this person!”

In the case of taboo, this causes a certain degree of non-sexual arousal, which happens to incite similar physiological responses (your blood flow increases, your breathing becomes faster, etc.). The brain interprets this as part of the sexual arousal, and voila! You are turned on by something that repulses you so vehemently that it literally makes your blood boil!

In summary: The brain muddles up different emotions and physiological responses a lot, and that’s the reason why you may be aroused by something that strongly opposes your beliefs.

– A Cracked.com commenter on an article about BDSM 

What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think … I say that for us emotion dissociated from all bodily feeling is inconceivable. – William James, 1893

This is also a very interesting scientific study (NOT conjecture, which an important distinction from the things I’ve talked about above) about the areas in the body where different emotions are felt (I usually only post links to provide sources, but I do want readers this time to actually go over there and read about this study):

Researchers in Finland have compiled the first authoritative atlas of “body maps” that detail where we feel emotions. It would seem that idioms such as a chest puffed with pride, or cold feet, are very much seated in physiological reality.

Looking at the maps, it’s amazing how each emotion triggers a very specific and unique physiological response. We can now clearly see that happiness and love actually make us feel sensation in our whole bodies. Sadness is felt in the heart, and decreases the feeling of everything else, except for parts of the face. Depression is an all-over lack of sensation. It is startling to see shame’s intense increase of sensation in the head and cheeks, fluttering heart and stomach, and numbness of legs so accurately depicted.