The Absess...

It was Saturday morning and Brielle came into my room and showed me what loked like a ripe zit on the palm of her hand. I couldn't remember her having an owie on her hand but was concerned that we had an infection brewing. All around this white head was redness on her skin. The whole thing probably measured the size of a quarter. Well I couldn't pass up a chance to see a massive explosion of pus(TeeHee) and attempted to lance the sucker on my own. When nothing would come out, I took her to UrgentCare and they told me it looked like a wart and there was nothing they could do. I went home and planned on calling the doctor on Monday morning and having the puppy frozen off.
Sunday morning comes along and we were in a mad rush to get everyone out the door for 9am church. We arrived late and snuck into a pew. During the passing of the sacrament Brielle comes over to me and says, "Look at my hand mom. It's bigger!" You could say that again!!! YUCK! Not only was it bigger it now sported a nasty yellow/green color. OBVIOUS infection!!!



This sucker was SO big, my friend 3 rows back and an aisle over could see it!!! I was embarassed but felt there was nothing to do but finish out church and head to the ER.



After about an hour of waiting at the hour, we were brought back and attemted to entertain ourselves another hour. (The ER was pretty crowded.)




The doctor FINALLY came in and took a peek. He said,"Without a doubt-that is NOT a wart!" Therefore verifying that the UrgentCare doctor did not have an accurate diagnosis. He said that it was definently an infection and that it appeared to be MRSA, a can-be fatal staph infection. SCARY!!!! It obviously needed to be popped and so the doctor numbed the area with a HUGE needle. It was absolutely AWFUL!!! He had mentioned that they could do general anesthesia for this and I was wishing that I would have gone that route.



While waiting for the anesthetic to kick in, Brielle was messing with her "bump". I was busy texting Steven an update. I was looking forward to documenting the "Big Boom"; I felt it was definently going to be blog worthy! :0) All of sudden Brielle says, "Mom! I popped it!!!" 'What?!?!?" I said. I jumped up to see that she had actually popped the sucker and it now looked a little like a popped blister. I admit that I was disappointed to have missed the explosion. :0(

After the anticlimatic "pop", the doctor came in to take a culture of the pus. He cut off the top of the bump and swabbed the area. After a good cleansing, the doctor felt an x-ray should be taken to see if a foreign object was in there. The x-rays determined that there was no metal or glass object in her hand. He sent us home with a heavy duty antibiotic and instructions to follow-up with our regular doc.

When we met with Dr. Pedersen the following day, he let us know that MRSA, although a dangerous condition if left untreated, is not as uncommon and scary as some docs make it out be. He said he sees a few cases of it a week and that we were already on track for treatment.

So Brielle has gotten herself to the ER yet again! I wonder how many other adventures we have in store with this child....