Health, part I

The thing about this blog is that it's safe. No one reads it. So all the fears, anger and other emotions that I don't know what to do with, I can put here. The last six weeks... It started in early August when I felt something weird happening on my back. I asked John to look at it, he told me it looked like a mole and we should get it looked at. We took a photo, and I called the dermatologist.

By the time I got into see him, a week later, it looked like this:

I was floored when the dermatologist said - "oh, that's a tick" and then removed it. Because of the irritation around it, he prescribed Doxycycline, a powerful antibiotic that I took twice a day for two weeks. Two weeks of throwing up, staying out of the sun, and halfway through the treatment, getting thrush. He also did a complete body scan, to look at any moles or skin conditions that might be a problem in the future. I specifically asked about something that had recently - I think sometime in the spring, shown up on my breast. It was skin colored with a hard brown core. He told me it was a cyst, and I shouldn't worry about it. So, about a week after finishing the tick treatment, around Labor Day, I noticed what looked like a pimple there. It quickly turned into an abscess. So I called the dermatologist office to try to get seen, but it was going to be two weeks. I made the appointment, and started putting drawing salve on it, and a lot of pus came out. I was able to get into see my PCP, on 9/11, a few days later. She was on maternity leave, and the elderly doctor (started practicing in 1971) said he thought it might have been a bug bite that got infected.He prescribed Bactrim, a sulfa-based antibiotic, and Nystatin to have on hand, should my thrush return.

So here I am 5 days later, trying to figure out what to do about the upcoming trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon.