The baby has a spider bite. It started off looking like a big mosquito bite. Bruce showed it to me a few days ago. Yesterday when I got home from work, it had grown, was hard and bright red, and had a pustule on it. It is on her right upper thigh.
There have been a rash of “spider bites” in the hospitals the past few years. They don’t really know what causes them. It is starts as something like cellulitis and turns into a carbuncle which has to be incised and drained. I have watched such procedures and cared for people in the aftermath. The doctor very often takes out part of the musculature or surrounding tissues depending on how extensive it is.
So with the baby, I didn’t want to wait until Monday. Yesterday was Friday. I fully expected her to be admitted and put on IV antibiotics. I called the pediatrician’s on call line, and was told to go to Wheeling Hospital’s ER. There we were put in the “Fast Track,” by triage. Had I known what that was, I would have known first off that we would thus most likely be discharged. She was sent home on Amoxicillin.
She has no fever, but she has had loose or watery stools since yesterday sometime, and her bottom is getting very sore. This was before the antibiotics, so whatever it is, it is obviously affecting her somewhat systemically.
I was pleased with the care. It was another situation where we were seperated by curtains, and heard every bit of what was going on “next door.” The patient was quite amusing, and I’m sure was making the day of the medical staff much more enjoyable.
