This is what happens when you show up with a hot, swollen, painful red patch on your leg in the ER. They pull about a pint of blood from you and send it off to a lab for three days. Meantime, they send you home with a prescription for Keflex, which is a real intestine emptier.

When it doesn't get better and they switch you to another oral antibiotic and then things get worse, this is what it looks like. Notice the total lack of calf definition from swelling. I tried to adjust the colors to something approaching real life. It was really that red. That cyan sheet is a heating pad.

Here's the IV they put in the back of my hand in order to administer the vancomycin. It took two tries. The first time they stabbed through a vein in my other hand.

A good day, huh? Me wearing a lovely and fashionable hosptial Johnny. I had pants too so I didn't have my ass hanging out.

Now we're in the second trip to the hospital with an IV in my other hand. They still missed, but it didn't stop them from fishing around for a bit.

To head home, they put in a midline catheter. This is a deeper IV that goes about 8 inches up from the crook of my elbow to my shoulder. A regular IV needs to be shited every three days. In theory a midline can stay in for the full course of treatment, except that it's given me a nice chunk of phlebitis (vein irritation) that showed up on day 4 of having the catheter in for 10 days total. The doctors recommend hot packs, but they're palliative at best.

The alternative to midline is a pic line (picc line? pick line? they never spelled it out) which goes in further up and then goes into the heart. There is supposed to be far less irritation since it is in a larger vein, but it requires the a X-ray to verify correct positioning of the catheter.

This is the needle that the tech used to install the catheter. This stung. A lot. It also felt really freaky to have a piece of plastic shoved up my arm. Owie, owie, owie.

No other wound pictures, but the second time in they were short of time and they gave me a marker and asked me to mark the affected areas. Just to there was no confusion, I wrote this on the good leg. It never failed to at least raise a smile in the multitudes of medical professionals that looked me over.