This title is particularly appropriate because I discovered this little wonder whilst at work. I had a few mosquito bites around my knees from…well being me. Even if I was wearing plate metal armor, living in a hyperbaric chamber twenty thousand leagues under the sea I ‘m pretty sure I could get a mosquito bite. Maybe I need a S.W.A.T team.Oh the puns! How the never end!
I remember sitting at my desk at 9 am thinking “Crap, that is one heck of a mosquito bite” then as it tripled in size “Crap, that is one heck of a spider bite” by my the time my Wikipedia search had come up dry, and the infected spot had reached the size of a small continent I started thinking “Python? Rabid wolverine? Chupacabra?”
I started marking the infection as it grew. Thinking I was probably obsessing over nothing (because I never do that) I showed one of my co-workers who nearly fainted on the spot. As it turns out she’s not much for medical mysteries. “Go to the hospital RIGHT NOW.”
Some of my other well intentioned co workers insisted I take off my socks (sorry office!), elevate my foot (again sorry), and rub on a powerful potion of essential oils before going to the doctor.
I had been tracking progress on crazy thing, and it looked a little like this:
Since the doctor wasn’t really sure what it was, he gave me a nice blend of antibiotics and steroids (yum). He also drew a line around my leg and said “no big deal. You’ll be totally fine. But if it grows beyond this line GO TO THE EMEREGENCY ROOM IMMEDIATELY”
That left me a little hard pressed when the infection crossed only the bottom line by about an inch. Do I only half need to go to the ER?
Whatever they gave me, it worked and my leg shortly turned into a healthy shade of pasty white.