#abscess

Late update, but Winter is doing well!

(Summer does too)

I have just spent the last several hours in the ER.

I ended up with a 103 fever with dizzy spells, body chills, weakness, wanting to pass the fuck out, migraine, black spots in my vision, vomiting and constant nauseousness.

I am getting discharged. They lanced and drained the abscesses. The infection hasn’t gotten to my blood stream yet but it’s was showing signs of necropathy which they got rid of. I have to follow up with asap to get referred to general surgery to have them fully removed.

The next few chapters may be delayed because they are putting me on some strong antibiotics and Tylenol 4.

I ask for your patience as I deal with this health complication that popped up out of no where.

Hidradenitis suppurativa is characterized by tunneling cysts, which leaves tracks on the skin, that will move to various locations in the body via the tunneling. Of course, the tunneling is painful and leaves voids that can become terribly infected. Often these cysts are in the groin and armpits.

Despite this, when I told my GP my suspicions, she told me it might help to lose weight and then disregarded it. She never referred me to a dermatologist.

HS is considered a hormone-influenced autoimmune condition.

This was after a large abscess had formed on my arm spontaneously and required FIVE ROUNDS of heavy-duty antibiotics to finally go away.

To say this upset me was an understatement.

I’m not the only one in my family with HS. My mom has it, and for a while was regularly having cysts removed by a plastic surgeon, including one that was the size of a baseball, but flattened out across a huge area. She didn’t know it was a specific condition until I told her.

But she did know I had a problem, which typically occurred as painful cysts in my underarms. Constant, to the point where I couldn’t wear deodorant if it had any form of antiperspirant because that would start it and make it worse.

So one year, for Christmas, she asked me if I would like my underarm sweat glands to be basically lasered to death, which her plastic surgeon thought would help solve the problem. The price tag was about $5000 but my mom was willing to spend that to try to help me not be miserable.

And so in the early 2010s, that was my Christmas gift. Took a train to the city, accompanied by a friend, had breakfast at a nice restaurant, as eating before was recommended, and went to the office.

They shoot you up with local anesthetic, and then these suction devices are attached to your entire armpit and the laser treatment begins. I’m not sure how long the procedure was, but it was very painful and I’m glad my friend went with me.

I went home and to sleep with ice packs taped to my underarms, healed up in a few days, and haven’t had nearly the problems I used to. But I went to that extent trying to treat the problem, and the only doctor who could offer me a solution was a plastic surgeon—which means I will never judge anyone going to one ever.

Eventually, last year, I decided to look into sterilization surgery, and so was referred to a gynecologist, who was perhaps the best doctor I’ve had in my life. I was low-key worried some of the pain was from something like endometriosis.

On sight, she told me “I think you have this condition, Hidradenitis suppurativa.” I told her I mentioned I thought I had it to my doctor, and what she’d said about losing weight. The gynecologist snorted derisively and said “Yeah, no. It’s almost entirely hormonal, so we’re going to get you on hormonal birth control to start treating it, and I’m referring you to a dermatologist.”

Dermatologist took one look at me and said “Yeah, that looks like stage 2 HS, for sure.” I still don’t know what stage 2 is or how many stages HS has. Once the worst of the infection cleared up, she put me on antibiotics that she hoped would help clear it up. They worked, but not entirely, simply shrinking them to be less painful, and they stopped tunneling.

We were working on getting me on Humira when I left my job and moved home.

Then my childhood doctor decided he wouldn’t give me a prescription for the antibiotics, saying “I would probably prescribe something different.” And then not doing so, despite acknowledging the diagnosis.

Within a week, I had tunneling abscesses, and it’s been a horrid struggle since. Needless to say, I’m not going back to that doctor and have an initial appointment with a new one next week.

But this struggle is horrific and depressing, and it’s added to my already chronic pain from fibromyalgia (which my mom also has), and I just wish doctors would fucking LISTEN.

Before my mom met her plastic surgeon, she was performing self-surgery at home because her condition was ignored by doctors. She didn’t even have any idea that she had HS until I found it researching and eventually got a diagnosis.

It’s absolute hell to get decent healthcare, even if you have the money to seek it, in the US. It’s especially hard if you are BIPOC, have a uterus, and/or have a higher BMI.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve been open about the condition and have actually helped several people who were able to get dermatology referrals based on finally learning they might have a condition that’s treatable. If I can provide that help through my openness and through writing this post, I will.

Summary: Something is stopping Loki from healing. Stephen decides to take a hands-on approach.

___________________

"How could you let it get this bad?"

"I have been cut a hundred different ways an infinite number of times in the last thousand years, Strange,” Loki growled.  “I have always healed just fine."

"I don’t know if you’re just clumsy or simply exaggerating.”

“I decline to answer that.”