Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Stormy weather ahead

I remember buying that album by Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill, listening to Isn't it ironic on headphones in the shop and thinking it was the freshest thing I'd heard in awhile. Then the Irish comedian Ed Byrne did a skit of the song which has become his trademark and I could never listen to the song again. Until today.....

Isn't it ironic that the main reason I had this surgery was to close over the vampire wounds thereby preventing infection? Maybe I haven't fully explained life before flappy but having an open wound exposes you to risk of infection. I say open, it was always covered with a dressing but the bastard bugs are everywhere man! I've been hospitalized 3 times over the past few years with infection of the neck. It's a tough battle each time. You get to know the signs but it's still a battle to get you over the line to ED. You look for common denominators, links so you can be quicker to react the next time. For me it looked like a whole heap of stress and exhaustion right before a viral infection which would end up with me in ED with the skin infection. 5 days of IV antibs followed by a week of oral and the inflammation would slowly go down. The last event has got to have been the worst by far. I couldn't
swallow with the pain in my throat and I couldn't sleep cos I had to keep clearing the mucus from my mouth.. I was surrounded by a sea of spit laden tissues, it was gross. It ended quite dramatically when an abscess bloomed and burst on the front of my neck. The Reg took great delight in squeezing the gunk out and declaring 'look this is the eye of the infection" - a ball of green snot. But after that it was plain sailing the antibs could do their work and I was home the 2 days after.

After each event there's the inevitable conversation about plastics and when/if to do the surgery. It was always like a weighing scales, balancing the risk of surgery with the risk of another infection. Surgery had the risk of flap failure which meant an additional trip to theatre and another chunk of muscle taken from somewhere else. The 'what if that fails' question left me with the fact that there's no going back once you rip the front of your neck open. If flappy fails twice then you just sit it out in ICU until you die. I mean what else are you gonna do? All the major blood vessels would be exposed, that doesn't leave much quality of life, do you get the picture? That's the risk that kept me from the theatre door for 14 years. Just sayin.

So I lived with the risk of infection. Careful wound care and prophylactic antibs, the cephalexin twice a day which again was the subject of debate amongst the various docs. Was it actually doing anything? Was there an underlying infection there maybe in the bone? Taking the antibs prophylactic ally was a bit of a lottery ticket but one that me and J hung onto like a life buoy. Where's the harm in taking precautions. I lived infection free for nearly 3 years, but then was that a coincidence too? Was it also a coincidence that I hit another wall of infection when I came off these antibs for one week cos 'there's one way to find out if you still need them, fingers crossed'? Or that time it could've been a perfect storm, they only come round once in a while don't they? 

So I'm sitting here on the bed in my wee room on my own and that song comes in my head. Isn't it ironic? I wonder what Ed Byrne would think about my conundrum. I have the same presentation as previous infections but no gaping holes cos flappy is there Covering them. Oh and by the way, those prophylactic antibiotics I was on? They were stopped on D-day cos there was no evidence of bacterial growth on samples taken at surgery. Better to treat an infection specifically at the time of active infection. Which is where I'm at now. If this current infection is going to be a recurring calendar event then Ed would probably say that yeah it is ironic. But if it's just the consequences of major complicated surgery then it's just incredible bad luck. I appreciate irony but not in this case. I'll be glad to see the back of these bugs.

Medical disclaimer: Reenie is under the influence of drugs so cannot be held responsible for any shite talked on this post.

BREAKING NEWS: 
Rivers of caramel have been seen at the site of the battle of the bugs. Masses of bacteria have lost their lives as fighting continues through the night on flappy. The breakthrough came when Reenie noticed something resembling gravy on her pajama top. Looking in the mirror she beheld the most wondrous sight - pus running down the side of flappy in streams of gold! This is a sure sign that the white knights with their weapons of mass destruction, Flucoxacillin, are nearing victory. Watch this space we'll keep posting as the events unfold.