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….