I would like to preface this post by saying that if you are at all queasy about medical things, you may want to skip this one...  And also all I can say is that my life is far from boring medically speaking...

About a week ago my right side started hurting and I was trying to remember if I had injured it in some way.  It was really starting to bother me so I asked my husband to look at it to see if there was a bruise or something there that he could see.  The spot was located just a couple of inches below my armpit and more toward my back so I was having a hard time seeing it.  When he looked at it he thought that it looked like a pimple that was trying to form in that spot.  So I didn't think much more about it and kept looking at it every once in a while to see if the pimple had formed yet.  Then Sunday evening came around and it was really starting to hurt - very sensitive to the touch and there was a small red round spot at the location.  That night I tried some ice on it to see if the swelling and pain would decrease at all.  On Monday it wasn't much better and probably got a little worse.  By this time it was a bit bigger and incredibly painful - even to move that arm much.  After doing some looking on the internet that night I decided to try some heat on it and that seemed to help some.  In the morning it didn't hurt quite as much but the spot seemed to be the same size.  I decided that I should probably see if I could setup an appointment with a dermatologist.  Luckily I was able to find one that could see me at 5:00 that day.

After I gave the dermatologist the short rundown of my medical history, she took a look at the spot and I think was quite surprised by how big it was...  Her first impression was that it was just a large abscess.  She asked if I wanted her to try cutting a small hole in the top of it to see if she could get some of the infection out.  She wasn't sure if we would get a lot out but thought that it was worth a try.  That sounded great to me at this point.  So she had me lay down on my left side and then numbed the spot up with some lidocaine.  That really hurt - the needle felt really sharp and stung a little.  Then she cut a hole in it and was surprised by how much pus came out.  She then tried pushing around the whole spot to try and get as much out as she could.  That hurt like crazy!!  She kept asking if I was alright or if I needed to take a break.  I had her stop twice to give me a minute to relax a little...  She then asked if I was okay with her cutting the hole slightly larger so that she could try and get more out without having to push so hard.  She put a little more lidocaine on the spot and then resumed her pushing.  At one point I heard her ask the nurse for some forceps - so I'm not exactly sure what she was doing back there but I didn't feel like asking either.  She made a comment once that just when she thought she had gotten most of the infection out, more would start coming.  Then she said that she wondered if instead of an abscess it was a cyst located just below the skin that had ruptured and then become infected.  They took several tissue samples so they could culture it and she said they would look at it under a microscope as well.  Finally the doctor said that she thought they had most of it since it was mostly blood coming out at that point.  They cleaned and bandaged me up and said that they would leave the hole open to allow the wound to continue to drain.  The doctor said that if it turns out to be a cyst like she suspects then I may have to come back in so they can cut me open more so they can remove all of it and then stitch me back up (sounds like fun, huh?).  The nurse sent me home with some more bandages and some vaseline to apply to it when I change the bandage.  The doctor also gave me a prescription for an antibiotic to take and said that they would call me in a couple of days once they had the results from the cultures.

I then went down to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription and then went out to my car to drive home.  As soon as I climbed into my car I just started crying because that procedure had hurt so bad - and was still hurting!  I was able to regain my compose after a minute or so and was able to get myself home.  The doctor had offered to give me a prescription for a painkiller but I thought that I would be alright with just over-the-counter stuff.  After I got home I took a couple of Tylenol and within the hour I felt much better.

Later this evening I emailed my doctor's group at Huntsman to let them know what had happened at the Dermatologist's office and asking if it was alright for me to be on this antibiotic with my Avastin treatments (of which I have one tomorrow morning).  I'm curious what the results will be from the cultures and hopefully this spot will continue to feel better and not get an infection.

When I went to change into my pajamas tonight I found out that the wound had bled/drained quite a bit and totally saturated the bandaid the nurse had put on and there was blood on over my underclothes...  I had DH come up and help me take the bandaid off and clean it up a little and put a new bandaid on.  Then I taped a piece of gauze over it so that hopefully I will not get any blood on my clothes or sheets tonight...