Cellulitus

Last year wasn’t a great year for us, with two family deaths and myself having a nine day spell in hospital. It all started with a red rash on my remaining leg, I watched as it grew bigger. Eventually, my two daughters insisted (and actually took me) on seeing the doctor. So I got up the surgery to ‘sit and wait’. Unfortunately, when I arrived they were ‘short staffed’ and the one remaining was about to go for lunch.  I was told to come back in an hour. I said I wasn’t going to come back, if I left that would be it. The kind receptionist had a word with the doctor (I explained the problem to her), and he agreed to see me. Immediately, he drew a line around the edge of my growing red area. He prescribed antibiotics and told me to go back if it didn’t improve. By 6 pm, my daughter was getting more concerned as I seemed a little ‘spaced out’. So she rung 111, explaining my temperature was hitting 40. the NHS hotline said I needed to go to hospital, and arranged an ambulance. I shan’t go into the ambulance drivers attitude, as this isn’t about that. Having spent four hours waiting in A & E I finally got seen, and was told I could go home. Great I thought, “But I need to just check the results of your blood test”. He returned “There is no way you are going home today” he said, “Your infection markers are very raised, and it seems you have sepsis” I was eventually moved to a ward, where I recall a doctor clearly saying “We need to try our best to save this leg” I must admit I never realised this was even a thought. I stayed in hospital for nine days, and hated every minute of it. I came home with another two weeks of antibiotics, on top of the intravenous ones I had had for the past 9 days. Moral of the story: Go to the doctor if you suspect anything BEFORE it gets too bad.