Staph Stuff

You know it isn’t great news when your doctor calls you and instead of telling you your test results right of the bat, he asks you how you are feeling. My hand doctor called yesterday, and before launching into my test results (for the abscess on my palm) he asks me how I am feeling. Any fever? Fatigue? Is the wound getting better or worse? Is it hot, itchy or red? I assured him I had none of those things and he told me I tested positive for a staph bacteria. So this thing in my hand is a staph infection. Apparently, I must have had an open cut on my hand that became wildly infected.

I am a little confused. As usual, when test results or medical news are delivered to me without the benefit of having a second set of ears then I tend to not be entirely clear on my diagnosis. I think it is because I go into a sort of tunnel,and tune out the doctor and listen to my own personal dialogue of What Does This Mean? I am so busy trying to figure out how this affects my fertility or trying to conceive or the next cycle or, now, the babies, that I am not listening properly and not dutifully asking for the proper spellings of the Latin names. He tested some fluid from the abscess, but he said that there is a chance that the bacteria grew in the lab because of optimal growing conditions (?) and not because it was actually in my palm. So maybe it is not a staph infection? Also, a friend who is a certified wound care specialist (who knew these titles existed!) told me that the doctor should have tested the tissue around the wound to see if that was infected.

What is clear right now is that it is not systemic. In other words, it hasn’t traveled into my body and reached the babies. I asked Dr. Hand three different ways if the babies will be fine and he said yes. The issue at hand (no pun intended) is finding antibiotics that will treat this that are safe for the baby. For that he wants me to see an infectious disease doctor. This makes no sense to me, since even I can use the internet to determine what medicines are safe for pregnant people. So why a new doctor?

Dr. Hand is so confident all will be fine that he didn’t want to change my Thursday appointment for that day. He told me to just come in on Thursday and we will take it from there. Nicole can’t come in with me because she has back-to-back meetings so I need to navigate these Latin-named waters myself. So till Thursday, I am keeping the palm covered in gauze, I am taking my antibiotics that probably aren’t doing their job (staph resistant) and I am putting on the cream twice a day. And wallowing a bit.

I called Dr. Nothing Bothers Her and she echoed that it was weird that I needed to see any other doctor. She too assured me the babies are/will be fine, but was quite firm in telling me that I needed to be treated because this is the sort of thing that can be life-threatening if it gets out of hand (again, no pun intended). I don’t think I am at death’s door and frankly I don’t care about any of this and how it relates to me. All I care about is making sure these babies are safe. I assume if there was any real danger to the babies, my doctor would take them out right away. After all, I am so close to 36 weeks and the babies are nice and chunky and hopefully ready to come out.

Still, it is this sort of drama that just gets me on edge. I know that for this entire pregnancy I have been nervous and scared about everything. I haven’t exactly been the picture of calm and Zen. Most people would stop worrying if their doctor said to stop worrying, but for me, worry is like an unstoppable force. I am trying to be even keel about this and just wait till my appointment tomorrow and not let worst case scenarios get the best of me.

Pictured above is my hand wound, taken on Sunday, compared with the hand of a Discovery Channel television show fisherman.