{Science delayed again, sorry folks. Soon!}

Or at least, it sort of feels like my finger is off in outer space right now.

This morning, or really, last night, I concluded that my finger was not getting better, had gotten in fact far worse since I saw the doc on Tuesday, and it was time for me to go to the Emergency Room and get the nasty thing taken care of before something really bad happened.

I will admit, the god damned pain had a lot to do with my decision as well. It had gotten really bad. It burned so bad that it felt like my fingertip was dipped in boiling oil. The ache in the finger joint was making all the other joints in that hand, including the wrist, ache in sympathy. And slight motion would make the whole infected area throb and vibrate with agony. It would throb so hard that it felt like an invisible force like magnetism was pushing at it in deep pulses.

There is only so much of that anyone can take before they seek relief.

So at around 7:30 AM, Joe (the saint) dropped me off at the entrance to the Emergency Room. And I must say that it went a lot better than my previous blog entry’s embittered riff would have predicted.

(I seriously had no idea I had all that in me until I started writing it. Turns out I had bitter feelings about emergency rooms all bottled up and waiting for release. Who knew?)

The three initial hurdles were a breeze. No waiting to talk to the admissions nurse, only around a five minute wait until the triage doc saw me, no wait for the intake guy, and then another five minutes waiting for someone from the ward to come fetch me.

While waiting, I read an article about the trend towards urban chicken farming in Canadian Geographic. The idea has some charm. I am very curious about what a really fresh egg tastes like. I am a fan of fresh organic low-travel food. And having pet chickens who also happen to make food for you out of table scraps has a certain appeal.

But it still seems like a lot of trouble to go through to get fresh eggs. Plus, you know… poop.

Anyhow, eventually I get a bed on the ward, and then the waiting begins. I manage to do some reading despite the pain making that hard to do, but mostly, I end up listening to the conversations happening on either side of me.

For me, eavesdropping is not really voluntary. Not when the conversations are that close to me and I am already in an emotionally vulnerable state. It takes a very specific and intense act of will for me not to listen to what people are saying when I can hear it that clearly, and I was bored and alone and in need of distraction anyhow, so listen I did.

Weirdly, both my neighbours had to have catheters put in. Synchronicity strikes again. The fellow in my right hand side has been unable to pee for a whole day and was in dire need. Poor old duffer. Old age is so damn injurious to one’s basic human dignity.

The fellow on the other side of me was in worse straits, because his catheter was in wrong somehow and he was in a hell of a lot of pain. I could hear his agonized cries quite clearly.

Sometimes it sucks to be so sensitive. I really felt bad for the guy.

Eventually, I was moved to the seated patient waiting area, because, as Lindsay the nurse said, “it’s just a finger”. Meaning I did not need to be occupying a bed when the doctor could see me as fine if I was sitting. I understand and even approve of the reasoning, but part of me still resented it.

Finally, they stuck me in a real room on the ward, a treatment room I think, and eventually, Doctor Wong came along and injected three needles worth of freezing into my finger. And while the needles hurt like a bitch, it was totally worth it almost right away, because finally I was free of the fucking pain for the first time in days.

The relief was so profound that I wanted to go to sleep right then and there. I was almost giddy from the release of tension. I felt like I could float away.

But the doctor would be back when the freezing was fully in, so I had to stay grounded.

And let me tell you, that finger was totally frozen. I barely felt it at all when she opened up the boil and let the bad stuff out, and as far as I am concerned, that was marvelous. I have had experience with the “only mostly dead” kind of anesthetic, and let me tell you, it is no fun.

After the doc was done, I had to wait a while, then a rather cute male nurse came along to dress the wound so I could go. We chatted a bit. He says I look like a guy named Mike on a show called Orange County Choppers where they make custom motorcycles. I will have to look that up because I have to see if that is true. Out there on TV, a doppelganger of me. Freakay.

And so now I am home. Doctor Wong wanted me to get an appointment with my GP ASAP, and she wanted it to be Monday, but Tuesday was the best I could do.

I took a nap when I got home, and somehow during said nap, the dressing on my finger vanished. Cannot find it anywhere. Whad dee fug. Luckily, the cute Asian male nurse gave me some gauze and some tape so I was able to fashion a very crude one of my own.

Trust me, nobody wants to see the Zombie Finger underneath, least of all me.

So not out of the woods yet, but out of pain, which will do for now.

The battle goes not in our favour, my Lord.

I have reluctantly concluded that my antibiotic is not only failing to solve the problem of my severely infected finger and its sac of pus, the problem is getting worse. The boil grows larger and uglier by the minute and I am getting really worried about it.

For one thing, it is horrifyingly ugly. It is a bloated sac growing out of the last joint (the one with the fingernail and fingertip on it) of the right hand side of my right index finger, now almost as big as the joint to which it is attached. The upper half of the boil is now covered in a grotesque milky white discoloration, with nasty looking black bits here and there. The rest is reddish pink with what look like black veins shot through it,

Honestly, you guys should thank your luckiest of stars that I do not have a digital camera, or I would totally be posting pictures of it to go with my graphic descriptions.

In summation, it looks utterly horrible. Ghastly, even. Like I am turning into a zombie, or like some alien implanted its seed into my finger and now it is gestating and getting ready to burst out and attack my jugular or something.

So now I feel embarrassed to have anyone who is not a medical professional see it. That is not the kind of emotional input a guy like me, who is already a shy agoraphobic with depression, needs. I already feel like a horrible ugly creature who offends all who look upon him and who should hide from the light of day and the gaze of decent people, even without having a hideous deformation of flesh hanging off one of my primary fingers.

Me and my friends goes to Denny’s on Friday nights, and now I am not so sure that I want to go this time. That is how ashamed I am of this horrible invader on my finger. I usually really enjoy our Denny’s dinners. They are the highlight of my week. But i may forgo it this week because I do not want people losing their appetite when they see my disgusting pus sac.

I suppose I could just cover it up with some bandages or something. I will still look weird and gross but it would save people a trip to the bathroom to puke, anyhow.

And besides the appearance, there is the sheer body horror of it all. Having something like this happen is just fundamentally horrifying. Everything about it screams “something is very very wrong here!” on that deep primal level where our fear of disease and injury lives.

And to think, not that long ago I was all flippant and cool about it, like “Oh right, this…. I have had this before, it’s no big deal, I will just go get it fixed at the doctor. ”

Well it has ever been anything like this before, I can tell you that. I have never experienced anything even remotely like this before. I have had injuries and infections before, but nothing this virulent and horrifying. And painful.

Have I mentioned the pain yet? Because it is still there and still bad and still wearing me the hell down and making it impossible to ever totally forget that I have this disgusting thing attached to me and growing bigger and grosser all the time.

But the biggest and darkest cloud blocking out the sunshine of my soul is my fear for my health. I know for a fact that this sort of thing can be very bad if it bursts and the bacteriological and toxic goop gets shot into your bloodstream all at once. Then it attacks your body like the poison it is, and kills whatever organ it hits first. Kidneys? Liver? Heart? Heck, there is enough toxic horror for everyone.

And then you die in horrible agony. Fun, huh?

And that is the scenario with someone with a healthy immune system. Who knows what would happen to a person with an immune system compromised by diabetes like myself?

So unless there is a sudden miraculous recovery in the next 16 hours or so, I am going to call my doctor tomorrow and ask him what I should do about this.

I get the feeling it might be time for that trip to the emergency room after all. Whether or not the doctor says so. This thing is a ticking time bomb and by the time I could see him (after the weekend) it might well be too late.

Nobody likes going to the emergency room, but if I know I am going, at least I can throw some books and snacks and drinks in my bag so I will not get too bored through all the interminable waiting.

“Wait for triage. OK, now wait for admitting, OK, now wait in this random room. Then wait in another random room. Then wait on the ward. Then someone will come by and you will be all “Finally!” but that person is just there to hook up your IV or take blood or something. Then wait on the ward some more, looking pleadingly at every person who looks even vaguely medical. Then someone else will come back, and even look sort of like a real actual doctor, but guess what? They are just the nurse practitioner, and they are just there to take your history. Then wait to the point where you are sure you can actually hear your sanity beginning to crack, and only when you are giving serious thoughts as to which direction you will go when you run away screaming, only then will the doctor show up, smile at you, talk to you for around 18 seconds tops, check off three things on a clipboard, and then vanish from your life forever. Then more things may or may not happen, then after a long long period of nothing, someone will wander along, evince mild surprise that you are still there, and tell you that you could have left ages ago but nobody bothered to tell you anything till they needed your bed for some other poor sap. ”

Yeah. Fun. But ya gotta do….