Had a pretty full day today.  I started out with my mom coming over to watch the kids for me so I could go to my appointment with my surgeon.  It was a pretty routine visit and everything looks fine as far as she can tell.  (Although my blood pressure always seems to be really high when I am in that office!)  I think she is a little concerned with how often I am having CT scans done, but it is because of the study that I am on...  I'm not sure if there is much I can do about that...

After my doctor's visit I went to get my second haircut.  The lady that has been cutting my hair said that my hair in the front just isn't growing as quickly as the hair in the back and on the sides.  That is something that I had noticed as well but I thought that maybe I was just imagining it!  She cut a little more off of the back and sides since it has grown so much since my last visit - already 6 weeks ago!  I was definitely feeling shaggy again!  I especially don't like the hair around my ears when it gets long!  My hairdresser thinks that I will probably need one or two more cuts before it is all an even length on the top.  Then I'll need to decide if I want to keep this length or not.

After my hair appointment I fed the girls lunch and then my dad came over to watch the girls while I went to the dermatologist for a follow-up appointment.  The dermatologist was really pleased with how my side was healing and said that she didn't think we needed to do anything more to it unless I start to feel it coming back.  She then asked if there was anything else that she could do for me and I asked her about a couple of red, raised spots that I have had on my skin for years.  She said that they could be easily removed and that she could do it right then if I wanted.  So she numbed up both spots and scraped them off and then bandaged them up.  One of the spots is on my chest and whenever I would wear a lower cut shirt MJ in particular would play with it whenever she was sitting in my lap.  I was given some vaseline to keep the spots from drying out and told to keep them covered.  Apparently dermatologists are finding that people are becoming sensitive to many of the topical creams out there so they just recommend that you put vaseline on any spots that need to heal instead of something like Neosporin or some of the other creams out there.  I thought that that was interesting.

After my dermatologist visit I got home and was able to sit down for just a few minutes before M&M came home and I needed to take her to get her hair cut - it has been a long while for her and I have always been the one to cut it.  I thought that she might like a more professional cut this time (plus she wanted some bangs) so I took her to the lady in the neighborhood that has been cutting mine - nice and convenient.

Then I came home and made dinner, rushed off to a pack meeting for our cub scout pack and then rushed off to the last hour of my Sounds of the Season rehearsal.  I am loving playing with this group again - I missed it last year - and they actually needed a bassoon this year so we are having M&M play with us as well.  It's been pretty fun playing with her and helping her out with the music.  She is doing really good for being as young as she is and having not even been playing bassoon for 2 years yet!

It was a super busy day today!!

The new antibiotic that I am on for the sore on my side makes me a little bit nauseous for about 30-60 minutes right after taking it.  Thankfully I only have to take it twice a day and I just have another day and a half left of it.  The hole is finally starting to close up so I just stopped wearing a bandaid over it a day or two ago.  Hopefully my skin will recover quickly from wearing a constant bandaid on that spot. I need to call the dermatologist to schedule a follow-up appointment for sometime next week.  It still feels like there is a little bit of a hard spot under the skin so I won't be surprised if they want to cut me open a little more to remove it all...

I feel like my hair is getting shaggy again.  I'm still debating with myself as to how long or short I want to keep it.  DH likes it the length it is right now and there are definitely benefits to it.  It looks pretty crazy in the mornings when I wake up so on the mornings where I have to drive Blondie to orchestra before school I usually put a hat on my head.  This morning after I came back home and took the hat off, Kay saw me and said, "Whoa Mom!  Crazy hair!"  Here's a picture of it this morning:

Finally got a call from the dermatologist yesterday evening.  She said that the results were back from the culture that was done on my sore and it is not infected at all.  It was just normal gram positive rod bacteria that is present in everyone's skin - no infection whatsoever.  So after looking at it under the microscope they are pretty sure that what happened was I had a small cyst just under the skin and something happened which caused it to rupture and the redness and pain that I was experiencing was just inflammation.  The doctor told me that she was going to put me on a new antibiotic that is specifically for treating inflammation instead of the one I was on which was for infection.  It is still draining slightly so I am still keeping a bandaid over the spot.  The doctor told me to come back in about 3-4 weeks and then she would take a look at it again and decide if we needed to do anything more to treat it.

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...