My Body Has Forsaken Me!

Sweet Gummi Mary! Can I ever catch a break? Here I am, fresh from almost dying 39 days ago, having shaken off the itchy VIRUS rash and the giant hive-y blobs from the Lovenox shots... and now I have a new old issue to deal with.

Since I came home from the hospital and went off the steroid and antibiotic they sent me home with, my lower legs have been swelly and red. Don't get me wrong. They're always red, from the top of the ankle to the crew sock line. For the past 7-8 years they've been like that. Not bright red, but pinkish. They don't hurt or cause problems. The docs and nurses poked at them in the hospital. Never said anything was wrong or prescribed treatment.

I showed my NP this new swelling on my follow-up doctor appointment on Wednesday. I had a little blister the size of a jellybean on the inner side of my left calf. He looked at it. Said it was nothing to worry about. I told him how in March of 2020, I had that giant egg-sized blister pop up on the outer side of that same calf. How it was just after lockdown, and nobody was seeing patients, and Farmer H got a butt-shot on the parking lot of his NP's office. 

 

My NP chuckled. I explained how I treated it with triple antibiotic ointment, and kept it covered with breathable large bandaids. He agreed that such treatment was proper, and said I could do the same if this little one came open. But to notify him if it looked infected or oozed yellow goo. He also said he was ordering some test I forget, but it seemed like a circulation thingy, similar to an ultrasound I had for blood clots long ago. He also said I could go to Wound Care, in the bowels of the hospital, and have it looked at. Since it wasn't yet a wound, I declined.

Anyhoo... the very next day, I had put a long, wide elastic wrap on my legs to keep down that swelling. I'd been using them off and on for a couple weeks. Wore them to the casino, which made my legs feel better during the long ride there and back. Thursday evening, I changed clothes in the master bathroom so The Pony could get into his 2-hour bath sooner. I wrapped my legs while sitting on the toilet, rather than out on the couch as usual. In fastening those little elastic metal hook thingies to keep it from unraveling, I poked my left leg, on the outside edge, above the calf. It's happened a couple times. No big deal. I just re-situated that fastener.

As I was pulling up my sweatpants, I checked to make sure the two fasteners would hold. The wrap felt wet. What in the Not-Heaven? I mentally accused The Pony of splashing water on my wraps when he started his bathwater. They'd been sitting on the edge of the tub, all rolled up. WAIT A MINUTE! That was blood! Not much. Just a tiny spot. I stuck a folded piece of toilet paper under the edge of the wrap. It was just a scratch, after all.

SWEET GUMMI MARY! When I unwrapped that wrap a couple hours later...

 

THE EGG-SIZED BLISTER WAS BACK!

 

The top edge was loose, the skin white like when the top of a blister is ready to come off. A little blood had settled in the bottom edge of the blister, where the skin was still attached. It didn't hurt a bit. The clear fluid had seeped out on the wrap in a couple of spots.

 

I washed my hands, used GermX, got my trusty big bandaids, slathered them with ointment, and covered my egg.  I'll be treating it like last time. It took two weeks to completely heal back then. In fact, it's been almost exactly two years to the day since this happened before. Then it was the evening we returned from a 9-hour trip to Oklahoma. I bumped that area getting out of A-Cad, and then sat too close to my underdesk heater.

This time, I blame the VIRUS for messing up my skin and immune response. And that tiny instigator, the pinprick of the wrap-holders, which was not even in the blister area itself, but an inch or two above it. I'd rush off to the doctor, but my NP had JUST seen a version of this blistering, and was not concerned about such a "wound" itself, but only if it showed infection.