Thursday, November 3, 2011

One little slip of a needle!

Back in April we had a cow that had taken a turn for the worse.  We dried her up and put her out to pasture until her calf was due.  When the time came for her delivery, the calf was dead and she was weak.  I was really strugling to gty the calf out so I gave her a labor boost shot.  When I tried to replace the needle cover, I pricked my left index finger.  It hurt a bit, but I was busy trying to save the cow.

Two days later the cow had also died and my finger was huge!  I went to the emergency room and was given antibiotics.   When the pills were gone the swelling was almost gone, then came back a bit.  I waited a week or so and went back to my doctor.  She ordered an x-ray, said the knuckle itself was fine and to give it some time to heal.

Another month went by and it was still swollen.  I was showing the vet my funcky finger to see if she had ever experienced anything like it as a vet.  She was not at all amused with my finger and begged me to go right to a med. station.  I did as she asked, they gave me steroids and told me to see a hand specialist.  The steroids were like the antibiotic, they worked pretty good, but when they were gone the swelling came back.  The specialist was busy so I had to wait a couple months to get in.

Once the specialist saw my hand and heard the story it seemed to become quite urgent.  That very day he tried to draw fluid out for testing (no he did not numb it..ouch) and sent me straight to an infectious disease doctor.  That doctor set me up with an MRI the next day and surgery 2 days after that.  It has turned out to be a crazy couple days for me.

At this point they have cut open the finger, flusher out the infection and cut out a chunk of bone that was infected!  They also said my knuckle joint has started to close up.   I never dreamed that so much was going on in there!  Now I am waiting to find out what the lab says was in my finger.

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