My tire guy was about to close shop as I finally rolled up late this afternoon after my adventure in Montana (see other thread).?ÿ Sized up the situation and placed an order for two new tires to be mounted on Monday if I'm available.?ÿ Before leaving I commented that my wife had noted on Facebook that he had spent some time in the hospital.?ÿ What a story.
Poor guy started feeling miserable and was running a fever.?ÿ Suffers until he can't stand it anymore and agrees to have his wife take him to a weekend mini-clinic type thing to get tested for COVID.?ÿ Before leaving he takes a shower and is changing his clothes when his wife says, "What is that?"?ÿ She is pointing towards his left shoulder where there is an ugly red bump.?ÿ He says he doesn't know and finishes dressing.?ÿ He gets the swab up the nose thingy and they tell him it will be two days before he will get the results.?ÿ He explains how miserable he is including mentioning that his feet are swollen, red and very sensitive to the point he can hardly walk.?ÿ They tell him to go the hospital emergency room, so that's what he does.?ÿ They won't let him in the door without first giving him another COVID test but of the quick variety.?ÿ It comes back negative so the lucky weekend-appointed ARNP starts checking him over.?ÿ The concern about swollen red feet fits one of the symptoms associated with COVID so they begin to run some other tests then tell him to go home until they get the results.?ÿ Before they get to the city limits they get a call from the hospital and are told to come back because Dr. Somebody had stopped by and looked at all of his information.?ÿ Once again they insist on swabbing his nose before he can come in the door.?ÿ The doctor spends a great deal of time with him and eventually asks him about the now-larger, ugly red bump on the top of his left shoulder.?ÿ Again he says he doesn't know.?ÿ He looks at it closely by using a hand mirror and finally remembers what it must be.?ÿ The day before he had picked up one of the family's big ol' mama cats and she grabbed that shoulder.?ÿ Apparently one claw had jabbed in fairly deep and there were two small scratches running down from there a very short distance.?ÿ They eventually discovered it was a bacterial infection caused by the claw puncturing him.?ÿ The infection was in the blood stream.?ÿ That is what had brought on the sick feeling and fever.?ÿ He was in the hospital several days as they pumped him full of antibiotics and used a magic marker to outline the edges of the disgusting red/purple area so they could see if it was growing or receding.?ÿ He used his finger to draw a large oval area running from his shoulder area to around his left breast area to indicate how far it spread before it began to shrink.
An uncle had a similar experience with a cat scratch.?ÿ It was running red streaks up his arm and he said it hurt about as bad as anything he could remember.?ÿ Antibiotics eventually fixed it for him.
I've never had that bad an infection, but I did?ÿ get a little gash on my thumb from a tooth of a cat that didn't want to be picked up.?ÿ It died the next day and was tested positive for rabies.?ÿ So I got the shots.?ÿ Parents also because they had handled it but no wounds.?ÿ
The vaccine was no problem, less so than a flu shot.?ÿ But before the vaccine series there was this stuff called immune globulin that was supposed to be injected at the site of the wound. A couple cc's of syrupy stuff. After the doc pumped my thumb up to about twice size, he decided he had to find another target and said roll over to get the rest of it.?ÿ My rump hurt to sit down for a day or two after that.?ÿ I was quite disappointed that, unlike dogs, I didn't get a fire hydrant shaped tag to wear proving my vaccination.
