For those who haven’t read the whole saga— I am in St. Luke’s Hospital Bethlehem/Fountain Hill because a 3-pound black kitten I am fostering managing to bite me while the teenager and I were giving her eye meds.
One of her teeth punctured my left index finger above the middle knuckle and I developed cellulitis that was spreading into my hand.
Thanks to a maceration dressing (again read the last few blog posts for details) and IV antibiotics every four hours, it seems to be calming.
Sunday afternoon
Sunday 3 pm
Sunday 4 pm
Monday 5 am
Monday 7 am
Monday 3 pm
Tuesday 6 am
Tuesday 11 am
Tuesday noon
Tuesday noon
Progression
Last night was not easy. Something was going on— I don’t know if it was the tropical storm or something happening with the other patients (this is the cancer floor)—and they didn’t even do basic checks on me for almost six hours.
The entire staff kept running to the other end of the floor and when the PCA did come down to this end, she apologized and ran back out again.
I was on IV meds for that time and when they came in it was business only. No chit chat.
And my needs right now are far from life threatening.
But around 7, I started to get really hot. I took my sweatshirt off and saw what I thought was the beginning of a rash.
And then I started to freak. Because I thought about the course of the day. My eyes were dry, burning and itchy most of the day. My skin had been itchy on probably 65% of my body.
I was taking an IV antibiotic from the penicillin family every 4 hours and I know I have issues with penicillin.
Was I having a reaction?
The nurse increased my fluids just in case. I have similar symptoms today.
As if that scare wasn’t enough, my dressing fell of my finger. But the nurse rewrapped it.
So I had my last bag of antibiotics at 4 am. They have no meds in the system for me today. My only meal ordered was breakfast.
Sunrise from my window
It all relies on what the specialist says.
The residents turned up at 6 am. It was time for the big reveal.
The residents, “the babies” as my favorite nurse calls them, took photos to share with the doctor supervising my care. I haven’t met him.
It looks like I will be going home today.
The nurses are all amazed at how quickly “that contraption” worked. The maceration dressing works on the same concept as a hyperbaric chamber, just a lot more low tech.
My daughter brought extra dry erase markers so we could have fun with the nurses and my care team. Yes, as the a patient with cellulitis from a kitten bite I drew paw prints all over my board.
Today was my second day in the hospital at St. Luke’s Bethlehem/Fountain Hill and also the day that Tropical Storm Isaias wreaked havoc in the Lehigh Valley.
This is the only unplanned hospital stay I have ever had and will also be the longest. My other other experience in the hospital was giving birth to my daughter.
Breakfast 8.4.2020
Lunch 8.4.2020
Dinner 8.3.2020
Hospital Food
There are only two parts of this experience that I have disliked: IVs, though I have learned to ignore them, and collecting my urine so everyone can monitor my fluids.
Everyone on staff has been kind, and most downright enjoyable and intelligent. But Nurse Michelle has been my favorite.
Michelle finally arranged all my IV tubes into a double Dutch arrangement so they don’t have to keep swapping them out on my arm. She labeled everything meticulously. Attention to detail is the perfect trait for a nurse.
Michelle’s labels
PJ has a bandage & IV too
The hospital has lovely old architecture and picturesque views.
Cloudy after storm
Sunshine after Isaias
A room with a view
I started betadine soaks today. I’m tickled that such basic medicine still works well. I also feel like I’m hanging out with Marge from the Palmolive commercials.
The charge nurse introduced herself and asked me if I had Covid or any signs of Covid. I said no. She was curious why I had been swabbed and tested for Covid. I told her that they had told me that it was required before my transfer.
She discusses this with the doctor.
Then I discovered I had been admitted to the cancer floor and anyone with Covid or Covid exposure can’t be on the floor. The patients here are all very immunocompromised.
I read the hospital menu as I want for my admissions tests. It’s torture as it is after 3 pm and I’ve had about 350 calories of food and 6 grams of protein all day. And then I see Monday lunch features maple glazedBrussel sprouts.
If you follow my blog, you may now Brussel sprouts are my favorite and I narrowly missed them. I was heartbroken.
** side note** Every staff person I have met at both of these facilities (I started at St. Luke’s Easton Campus) has been amazing.
The nurse finished most of my paperwork when a very handsome doctor strolls in, with sandy light brown hair and big eyes, swoops in to check my finger. He’s the specialist, the regular doctor and the nurse have all seen the cellulitis from the puncture/bite caused by a 3-pound kitten.
He tells me his plan for treatment—a maceration dressing. Now at first, I got this word mixed up with “eviscerate” and thought maybe they planned to make a brace of nails to poke holes in my flesh and let whatever was beneath the flesh ooze out.
The reality is far less gruesome but probably just as uncomfortable.
He carefully explained, but I’m going to summarize and share pictures. They put wet gauze around my hand, wrap it in a splint, wrap it in some soft stuff, tape it like a candy cane, put a plastic bag over it, wrap it in a heated blanket, put it in a big sling and hang it over my head.
“Ah,” I said. “The height of 2020 technology here.”
“It works,” he said.
He returned with a resident and an intern and they set to work. I love being in a teaching hospital because I learn so much.
Maceration Dressing
I finally ordered some food and I meant to ask the kitchen staff if they had any Brussel sprouts left over from lunch but I forgot. I went with the beef brisket. And a sweet potato. Applesauce. Lemon meringue pie. Salad.
When it arrived, my tray only had spoons as utensils.
I have my left arm suspended from an IV pole. My right arm has an IV in the elbow. And I have to eat salad and cut meat with a spoon.
So the nurse came in for one of those routine things that nurses do, and I asked her, “Is it customary to not receive forks?”
She looked at my tray and started to laugh.
I must have looked a good tad baffled.
“It’s usually hard to get a spoon around here,” she said.
“They were saving them for me,” I replied.
Note the utensils
She found me some plastic utensils and I was able to dine more delicately. Later at shift change, the nurse and I managed to convince the night nurse that I was under doctor’s orders not to have a fork.
I should know not to joke about food as I had an NPO go into effect at midnight just in case I needed surgery in the morning.
I slept from about 1 to 4 a.m., and the resident undressed my contraption shortly after 6. The swelling had reduced, the redness gone, only one knuckle still swollen. The resident squeezed and poked and prodded but no discharge or puss oozed out.
This means no surgery!
The morning after
We will be doing another 12 hours of fluids, electrolytes and unasyn. And betadine soaks. I have noticed the knuckle is no longer swollen!
If you look at my last few entries, you will read about the tiny, little cat bite that sent me to urgent care and then to the ER at St. Luke’s Easton Campus. I never expected what happened next,
Right away, at 6:40 or so a.m., the doctor in the emergency room explained my options. They preferred to start IV antibiotics, then transfer me to one of the larger hospitals in the network.
Which would require an ambulance.
So I asked, “Could I just go to the hospital myself?”
And he explained I could, but he would be discharging me against medical advice, and then I would start over in the other emergency room. Which might mean two separate emergency room charges. And not being monitored. And losing my spot in the triage line.
And he recommended asking for removal of the transfer charges.
Now they have drawn on me with surgical marker at this point and i can see my finger swelling and my infection spreading. Two knuckles are completely swollen and angry.
I want to get this treated ASAP. So I agreed.
I’ve seen every episode of House MD, I know infections that spread are bad.
That was an attempt at levity. I don’t think all doctors are like House.
This is only my first real hospitalization— unless you count childbirth.
Now, Easton Hospital has a long history in the small community where I live. When I moved here, Easton Hospital was still a small, independent hospital. A few years ago, the Steward Group bought it and made it a for-profit hospital.
Which, for the sake of trivia, increased the tax base in our borough.
But over the course of the last year, Steward closed down entire departments. When Covid-19 hit, Steward threatened to close the whole damn hospital if the state didn’t offer massive financial support.
In May, St. Luke’s University Health Network bought the hospital. My doctors are all affiliated with this network so when the urgent care suggested going to the emergency room, this one is about 600 steps from my house.
I didn’t know that in the transition, the hospital has not fully rebuilt its services and wasn’t equipped for my care. I would have gladly driven to the larger hospital. Oh well.
By about 10 a.m. my ER nurses have given me a second antibiotic (the urgent care had given me oral Bactrim), hand x-rays, and fluids. They also swab me for Covid as a safety precaution prior to transfer. That was squiggly. The hospital where I must go is full, so I have to wait for another patient to be discharged.
And it is the full moon.
I have my own triage room in the ER. At about 11:30, my neighbor, Sarah, comes and brings my phone charger, iPad, teddy bear and my favorite sweat shirt.
We talk, play cards, watch TV and learn that I am not allowed to eat. My hand may need surgery. The nurse apologetically offers me clear fluids but also offers me a milk. I ask for the ginger ale.
Lunch was Shasta. It was a perfectly tasty and cold Shasta that hit the spot.
Sarah and I play cards as I drink my Shasta
The Easton squad arrives at 2:20 p.m. for my 2:30 transport. I am happy to report that my blood pressure has been good. I joke around as they strap me on, which this is really the silliest medical transport ever.
So yesterday in our first attempt to medicate Hades’ eyes, she bit me.
As I wrote yesterday, I went to the urgent care and was prescribed antibiotics. But this morning the bite and finger was much worse.
4 hours after bite
Six hours after bite
20 hours after bite
24 hours after bite
Progression
Ironically we were able to give both kittens their meds today without a hitch. And Hades even stayed out and didn’t hide after we smeared antibiotic ointment in her eyes.
The black cat at the teenager’s witchy shelf
After we got them treated, I went downstairs, had a little pastry and took my bactrim.
Then I headed to the emergency room at St. Luke’s Easton Campus. I walked over. It’s a gorgeous morning.
Now I left home shortly after 6. I didn’t open the curtains or feed the birds because I figured I could do that when I get home.
The ER has other plans. I need to see a hand surgeon. He will decide whether he needs to open the hand and clean it. Personally I believe he does.
So I have had an X-ray, IV antibiotics and fluids, and a variety of blood work that has also returned normal.
I am sitting and waiting for a room to open at the main hospital in Bethlehem as this one doesn’t have an OR let alone a hand surgeon.
I thought they could just poke a hole in it and be done.
How wrong I was.
Once the room opens, I will ride the ambulance to the other facility.
Have I mentioned I have a high deductible medical plan?
So four out of our five kittens in the “Greek Pride” we are fostering for FURR had a great day.
Left to right, kind of clockwise: Hermes (white nose), Zeus & Aphrodite (not sure from this angle who is who), and Artemis
Hermes and Hades both get antibiotic cream for their eyes. Hermes now has no probably with us giving him medicine, though he hisses a bit and puts up a token fight.
Hades, the little black kitten not in the photo, let me scoop her up and bring her to the teenager for her medicine. As I extended her face toward the teen, Hades panicked and started flailing.
I didn’t have a good grasp on the scruff of her neck (she’s 1/3 to 1/4 of the size of all my boys) and when I lifted my hand up to push her front paws against her chest, she bit me.
One tooth made a puncture above the knuckle of my left index finger. The teenager demanded I put the kitten down and go wash.
I washed my arms and hands with soap and water and then poured hydrogen peroxide in all the scratches and covered the puncture with a band aid.
Hades hid. All day.
An hour or so later, before going to the grocery store, I changed the band aid and added some triple antibiotic ointment.
I got the cats some sardines— the teenager deboned one can to share between all nine cans. The kittens, especially the runt, enjoyed them. Hades wouldn’t partake.
Sardines
Over the course of the day my finger swelled and I couldn’t bend it. When I did bend it, some discharge (relatively clear looking with a bit of blood) came out of the wound. It was starting to feel like I slammed it in a car door. I took an Epsom salt bath and headed to the Urgent Care.
Now I love my local urgent care.
This is what I looked like:
Lost the kitty battle
The bite is that small dot above the knuckle on my left index finger.
The assistant who took me to the exam room noticed my wounds and asked if I was there for the scratches. No, I said, showing him the puncture. “Cat bite?” he asked.
“I’m fostering unsocialized kittens and this one needed medicine in his eye,” I replied.
The doctor comes in.
He suggested I have an infection in my fingernail/cuticle and that it traveled into the knuckle. I suggest maybe it’s the puncture. He insists it’s the fingernail and prescribes bactrim, an antibiotic, but he wants me to go to the ER.
I grab a pizza, come home, take my first pill and help the teenager with the kittens. Hermes takes his evening meds like a champ and we scoop up the runt and think we see two little testicles.
We named him Zeus. Zeus likes to eat and likes to play. Artemis plays a little, but Zeus really likes to play.
These kittens are all very timid, although one is more friendly and outgoing than the other. We will be fostering them at least this week to socialize them before they get neutered and vetted.
So our mission is to make these critters lovable and teach them that people are nice.
You’re job is to help me find them homes and support FURR’s work.
Six months ago this little devil was trapped at the size of these babies.
Fog
He loves to be on the border of social gatherings but is still aloof. But he’s my buddy. He certainly is not up for adoption.
So some of my blog space will promote the journey of these kittens. The teenager has decided they will all receive Greek names. After the gods and goddesses.
If we continue to foster kittens, our beasts will all be deities.
This is the first action shot of them exploring: Exploring
Now, there are five of them. One black, which regardless of gender will be Hades. He/she is the most firmly planted out of sight under the shelf in the teenager’s loft.
There are two with socks, two without.
The friendliest one is Artemis, a female, with a white triangle on her brown nose.
Artemis
The bravest one we have tentatively named Hermes, but the teenager won’t commit unless he/she is definitely a boy. “Hermes” is named for his/her speed. He/she has some recovery to do regarding his/her eye. “Hermes” also has socks but a fully white snout.
That leaves the two with no socks, one of which has the cutest one dot on the tip of his/her tail. One of them is also the runt. Probably the one everyone else was sleeping on in the carrier. Now, some of these kittens have stunning silver eyes.
Hades is in the back
The top cat is Artemis
The two most aloof
Remember these little Greek gods will be up for adoption soon. The $110 adoption fee includes all shots, neutering, deworming, flea medicine, AND microchip. And I can help you pick the best one for you/your family!
My morning routine involves feeding my menagerie, cleaning the kitchen, working with the Roomba to pick up my room. And a cup of coffee, some cockatoo cuddles, and a few rounds of Words with Friends.
This morning I retrieved some clean laundry that needs to be put away, and while I was chasing the Roomba the laundry basket fell. All my clean laundry was now unfolded on the floor.
Fitnessmoment
I used it as an opportunity to pick it up one piece of laundry at a time in a wide stance squat and move into a calf raise as I piled it on my bed.
I ate super well last night, and wore work out clothes yesterday, but today I WILL work out.
Brussel sprouts and cranberries with organic wild rice
Chicken salad with garden herbs
While we were eating dinner, I got a text message from Stephany, our contact with Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab. She has kittens for us to foster! We pick them up today in about 90 minutes…
Newkittens need homes
The teenager is thrilled.
We will pick out their names and anyone that is interested in the group or adoption— because you will see soooooo many pictures— can click below for details on the organization.
Cats are fully vetted and microchipped (and socialized!) before adoption. The adoption fee is $110.
They have four feral cats right now that need barn homes and they usually like them to go in pairs so if you know anybody with a farm or any kind of situation where someone has property and would like a couple mouse catchers let them (or me) know.
Today started from the get-go with an air that everything would be harder than it needed to be. I’ll spare you my editorializing and stick to my main message.
The other night, the teenager turned to me and asked what happened with our recent cat litter order. Now with four cats in the house I have 30-lbs of cat litter on auto ship from Petco every three weeks. I actually had this order ship early and I upped it to 60 lbs.
Petco Customer Service
Fog
It shipped on July 24. Well yesterday I tracked it, as our five litter boxes are getting low.
The UPS tracking system said “receiver has moved.” Ummm…. I haven’t moved in 17 years and I have been getting this order for more than a year.
I call customer service. I had a very sweet, very friendly representative named “Jean” who didn’t sound American. She informed me she would file the appropriate claim about the missing package.
I quietly said, “and in the mean time, what about my cat litter?”
She placed a new order, free to me, that should arrive in 5 to 7 business days.
Three 30-lb containers of cat litter arrived at noon today. Kudos to Petco.
Errands and paperwork
I finally wrote the letters freezing my Planet Fitness membership. I don’t have a printer, but the teenager does, even though it is running out of ink. I shared the letter with her on Google docs and asked her to print two copies.
Why two copies?
Because even though my home gym is in Easton, some of my paperwork says it is Mount Pocono even though I have never even seen the Mount Pocono Planet Fitness. The letters need to be certified, according to the contract, so I spent $4.10 each to send two. It’s easier than finding out I sent it to the wrong gym.
I had $33 cash and 15 cents in coins when I arrived at the post office. I told him to give me a few stamps and if he could get the total to an even number I would pay cash. At 55 cents each, the math on making that work… well he gave me 14 and it came to $15.90.
He’s probably now thinking the same thing I am— that 2 more stamps would have been the number we wanted, $17.
Ah, well. I’m still not convinced this federal coin shortage isn’t a political move to force Americans into accepting a cashless society. I’m still pissed that we moved our currency away from the gold standard.
Review: McDonald’s Iced Coffee
On the way home from the post office, I stopped at McDonald’s again for a medium iced coffee and to get my free fries Friday medium fries. I had mentioned yesterday that the caramel iced coffee tasted like a milkshake more than coffee.
So today I ordered a medium iced coffee for $1.29 (and my free French fries with a side of spicy buffalo sauce). The standard iced coffee comes with cream and liquid sugar, which confuses me because I think it is also made with whole milk.
Well I ordered mine with no sugar. I don’t like liquid sugar and I don’t put sugar in my coffee.
When I took a sip, it was awful. My Nescafé is better. But once I started eating the French fries and the buffalo sauce, my searing tonsils didn’t have any problem with the coffee any more.
Perhaps I will have to drink all of my iced coffee plain and compare them all. Get one from Dunkin, one from Starbucks and one from McDonald’s.
This is how I think they would rank:
Dunkin’ Donuts
Starbucks
McDonald’s
So, I want McDonald’s to knock Starbucks down a peg as Starbucks coffee is bitter. But McDonald’s struck me as weird. We shall see.
I ended last night with a delightful (super super delightful) tapas of succulent olives, hummus, blue cheese and pita chips with my neighbor.
Cozy tapas
Tonight I’m ending the night with blisters from going for my evening walk while wearing flip flops and feeling a little guilty for taking advantage of my DQ reward points to get a free chicken strip basket at Dairy Queen.
DQ chicken
Nala loves french fries
I have gained 10 pounds since the pandemic started. I am happy to say that my daily steps have tripled, but I haven’t used my dumbbells for anything other than doorstops, and I suppose I should go ahead and cancel my gym membership. Because I’m unemployed and I don’t want to go pay someone for something I can do at home without a mask.
If only I could stop the junk food habit.
But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to touch on two topics. I’m going to briefly touch on what I love about the business and non-profit environment here in the Lehigh Valley.
Then I’m going to sing the praises of Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab and report that our adorable pseudo-Russian Blue kittens, now about nine months old got neutered today and are still stoned out of their fuzzy little minds.
Life in the Lehigh Valley
So, I grew up in the Slate Belt and then moved to Bethlehem for my college years at Moravian College. I’ve always loved the diversity of the Lehigh Valley region, the diversity of urban vs. rural, the infrastructure, the businesses, the farms, the corporations.
Today, I attended a meeting with the person in charge of corporate giving for a major corporation that has offices all over the world, and a huge influence historically and currently in the Valley.
I attended that meeting as a representative of Aspire to Autonomy, Inc., and supported one of the founders of the organization in this important private conversation we were having.
And suddenly I was awestruck again.
Periodically, I am annoyed with the Valley for the same reasons that I love the Lehigh Valley. But today I felt enamored.
The Lehigh Valley, in part because of its proximity to the ports of New Jersey and the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the local highway infrastructure connecting it everywhere, attracts a wide variety of businesses while hosting some economic mainstays—like Air Products, Just Born Candy, Martin Guitar and Crayola.
We have two major hospital networks competing madly locally— St. Luke’s and Lehigh Valley Hospital.
But the region, despite having three cities just about touching (and Allentown, with its population of more than 122,000, is the third largest city in the state), is amazingly small. It’s not that hard to travel from one end to the other and people seem to know everyone, especially in the business world.
Or maybe it just feels that way to me because I spent 15 years as a local journalist.
So, here I am in the meeting, immediately recognized as the former Development Manager for ProJeCt of Easton, helping sell this two-year-old non-profit to a potential major funder.
I even dressed up for the Zoom— and then the person we were meeting dialed in, so I got to put on makeup for my stoned cats.
But because of the “smallness” of the Lehigh Valley, this very busy executive took more time than she had to to meet with us. As a result, we all left with an increased understanding.
We have a better fundraising plan regarding this corporation and this person learned more about how all the anti-trafficking organizations here in the Valley work together.
But what impressed me was the willingness of this individual to work with the “little guy.” That is something that makes me proud to live in the Lehigh Valley.
Therescued kittens have been neutered
I rambled quite a bit on that earlier bit.
Today, the teenager and I left the house at 7:30 to transport the kittens to FURR for a low-cost neutering.
Stephanie, the woman from FURR we have been working with, was even kind enough to place Fog and Misty on the backseat of her car with their cat carriers facing each other instead of in the big cat pile of carriers in the back of the car.
That made me happy. That the brothers could see each other.
On the way home, I stopped at Grocery Outlet as the teenager had announced that cheap instant coffee was garbage and we were going to need more Nescafé.
(For more details on this, see yesterday’s post: Nescafe Capers)
And then the teenager filled out an adoption/foster application with FURR on her phone in the parking lot.
Because we need more menagerie.
Oz enjoyed being my main baby today while the kittens were gone.
And I also did my nails.
Matte silver
And it seemed like it took forever until it was time to retrieve the boys. They are both about 9 3/4 pounds. They are Feline Leukemia negative. They have their shots now, nails trimmed, flea meds and deworming.
Fog wouldn’t come out
Misty getting meds
Last dinner
Fog asleep in water bowl
Brothers Post Surgery
And they are ridiculously mellow and stoned right now. I think Fog fell asleep with his head in the water bowl.
Angel Ackerman 