I cut the tip of my left index finger a few days ago, on a can of dog food.
Last night the tip of my finger was red, painful, swollen, and warm. The medics and/or classical scholars amongst you may recognize the signs of inflammation: which have (helpfully?) been stuck in my mind since med school: rubor, calor, dolor, and the other one. (Turgour? Doesn’t seem right). I should be grateful to my immune system for all the fabulous unsung things it does for me every day. I don’t have cancer, (that I know of, touch wood) for one; and it hasn’t turned on me with any nasty autoimmune disorders, for another. But it does seem relatively feeble at stopping these trivial injuries from progressing, that then need modern medical interventions to fix ie antibiotics. And it’s not because of having a medical mother, trashing my immunity as a child. Rachel was a psychiatrist and it had been a looong time since med school when she had me. The one thing she seemed to retain was an occasionally useful distrust of fancy new things. I well remember the time, I must have been around ten, when I cut my foot on a smashed glass milk bottle (yes, this reminiscence goes way back). A couple of days later the signs of infection became apparent, meaning nothing to me of course at that age. My lower leg was so painful and swollen that the only way I could get around was scooting along the floor on a sheepskin rug. A few days later she finally relented and started me on antibiotics, and I was up and normally mobile again in no time. You’ll note no other doctors were involved at any point. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but there was that other time when I was thirteen, and I had acute tonsillitis. Apparently the number of times I stopped breathing in the night was quite alarming. Not enough to do anything about it, mind. It was several years later when a bunch of friends on a sleepover told me the following morning they couldn’t get any sleep because of my snoring and frequent apnoeas. No, that wasn’t the term they used, but I’m trying to push the story on a bit. I do remember the look of surprise and concern on the ENT surgeon’s face at the consultation we had when I was 16.
Lest you think our childhood was a litany of parental neglect (I prefer to call their parenting technique “laissez faire” ) when she was a locum GP for a while, having morning sickness with her first child, she did resist the blandishments of the personable young drug rep to try the new miracle drug, thalidomide.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, finger. Here it is this morning, well on the way to being healed.
That other thing on the right is my middle finger.
So all’s well that ends well! Although having said that I have woken up this morning with muscle aches and feeling freezing cold, so it’s possible something systemic has snuck into me while my immune system was looking the other way. Heaven forbid! When we’ve got a full house coming for Xmas. My husband is threatening a RAT test in spite of me being vaccinated a couple of weeks ago.
I’ll let you know.
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