Wednesday Bag o’ Cefazolin

For a change, this installment’s bag photo is as literal as it gets: it’s me wearing my bag o’ Cefazolin (click on the image to see it full-size on Flickr). My bug-eyed stare indicates my continuing state of shock.

Before anyone else asks, I don’t yet know the specific bacterial organism I’m fighting off. Should find out tomorrow when I see the infectious diseases doctor. But I’m pretty sure it’s not anything life-threatening like, oh, say, MRSA. Here’s why:

After my morning antibiotic fluid bag replacement yesterday I went to my scheduled PT appointment. They didn’t like the fact that I was being treated for an infection and asked me to reschedule and come back when the treatment is over. I was, of course, pretty upset (though I kept it to myself), discouraged and disheartened. MRSA Mary. Branded by a bag.

I went home in a state of mope. Last night Donna came home and I started to feel better immediately. This morning when I went in for a new bag I told them what had happened. They wrote me a note saying it was okay for me to go to PT. I went back to the PT place and rescheduled my missed appointment, and now I’m back on track. That’s why I don’t think things are all that dire. If they had refused to give me a permission slip … or if any of the techs had mentioned Hugo Chavez … I probably would have asked them to euthanize me on the spot.

Speaking of Hugo Chavez, who died yesterday of what was probably a MRSA infection contracted in the Cuban hospital where he was being treated for cancer, did you know he had a parrot named Simón Bolívar? And that they wore matching red berets? Suddenly I feel a little better about that problematic man.

So there’s that, too: the fact that if what I have is MRSA, I would have joined the choir invisible by now. And my little parrot too.

Walked the dog this morning. Without the cane. Shall I take a bow?