Daddy Is Sick

It has been a crummy week for the Wearden clan, lol.

Michael has been feeling very poorly, to the point that Saturday he was unable to go into work. He doesn't call in that often because he really, truly hates it--the less days he is there, the less opportunity he has to sell, and since he is in a commission-based position, it is better that he be there.

Anyways, he woke up on Saturday feeling so awful that he only made it halfway to work before he had to call in and come back home. We figured a little rest and he would start feeling better, but it kept getting worse and worse.

Monday, he was just miserable so he finally made an appointment to go see Dr. Smith (our PCP, kind of). Here's what he had to say:

Michael has a pretty severe staph infection that has affected his lymph nodes. Dr. Smith wanted Michael to go straight to the emergency room, but Mike wanted to avoid spending the money to do that as a last resort. So, Dr. Smith has prescribed a heavy duty dose of antibiotics (free, thanks to United's antibiotic program--hurrah!), as well as an antibacterial medical soap called Hibiclens. He told Michael not to go into work for a few days and to take it easy as much as possible, and if it gets any worse that we are to go straight to the hospital. For the next couple of days, Michael needs to go back to the doctor and check in to monitor progress.

In case you were wondering:

Staphyloccocus is a group of bacteria that look like a bunch of grapes when viewed under a microscope. It is found naturally in the nose and on the skin of about 25-30% of healthy adults. For the most part, staph doesn't cause any problems--the skin is a very effective protective barrier. But when the skin is damaged in any way, it gives the staph bacteria an opportunity to get into the cells and start wreaking some havoc.

The big concern here is that if staph makes it into the blood stream, it can cause sepsis (blood poisoning), a more serious condition. So we do want to handle this as promptly as possible.

So that has been what is going on for the last several days--Michael has had to stay home, and the medicine is making him even sicker, and he is just miserable. Hopefully he will start feeling better soon because tomorrow we have to take Gabriel to the ENT to have the hearing test.

I'll keep you updated!

~Andie~