Google images may have saved Morgan’s life. He’s on his way home from the hospital now (it’s Sunday morning). WARNING: graphic photos below.
Let’s just get me out of the way here: I am a basket case. Between Ryan’s mass and surgery, Mango’s being lost and found and my mother’s intense disapproval and blame, and now Morgan’s weekend emergency hospitalization because he developed a heart-stoppingly dangerous infection, the last 30 days have been quite a ride. If anything bad happens to Hal, I might just leave his body on the road in Escazú and hope someone else helps him. I’m helped out. The only positive is I think I lost a couple more pounds from stress. I’d rather have the fat.
Wednesday night, Mo complained of a pain in his eye. He spent all day Thursday in bed, still had the pain but not too badly, it seemed. And no swelling, no visible problem. We figured it was a stye. And he’d been up all night the weekend before playing a video game (they can make that dumb choice if they want to one weekend night), so we figured he was catching up sleep.
Thursday night, the eye started to swell a bit, he was feverish and threw up several times. I went to geezer gig rehearsal thinking the worst was over. His fever was better and he was eating. Two long time expats there suggested spider bite which seemed reasonable. But by the time I got home, his eye was pretty ugly and he was feverish again. I started searching online, starting with “spider bites Costa Rica.” Nothing seemed to fit: spiders either kill you or you get a little swelling. And Costa Rica doesn’t have any really aggressive spiders, particularly at 4000 feet where we live.
So I changed tactics, searching “eye pain eyelid swelling” and, about an hour later, ended up here: orbital cellulitis. That scared the life out of me, so badly my knees started knocking. I was shaking, teeth chatteringly terrified. I woke up Hal and told him I thought this was pretty serious. He said we’d take Mo to the doctor in the morning.
Which reminds me: how come these things never happen during doctor’s hours?
I go back to the computer and type in orbital cellulitis in google images. I see people whose eyes look just like Mo’s and I totally freak out. I wake up Hal again, he’s sensible again. I go back and look at Mo again. It’s 3am. I ignore Hal and take Mo to CIMA’s emergency room.
Not to blame Hal at all. He’s the intellectual, putting
two and two together. A) He’s not looking on the internet and getting
scared to death and, B) he knows he’s married to an overly dramatic wish-she’d-been-a-doctor hysteric. Fortunately.
The CIMA doctor on-duty is very nice but, in the end, he was too much like Hal and not enough like me. After a blood test and a CAT scan ($435 for everything but the drugs – such a deal), he said Mo had a serious sinus infection (which was news) that had moved to his eyelids. A course of regular antibiotics would take care of it. He sent us home with $100 worth of drugs. It’s 6am.
Three hours later, the swelling is a tad worse and Mo’s still in serious pain. We go back to CIMA. The doctor now on duty looks at the CAT scan and says Mo needs to be hospitalized immediately with IV antibiotics. This is what the internet said everywhere I looked and what I believed should happen. We hysterics don’t mess around. Mo was not at the orbital cellulitis stage, but he was well on the way. The stage after O.C. is bacterial meningitis the thought of which had me shaking again. The only way to stop this infection in its tracks is with IV antibiotics. Nothing less would do and there just weren’t days to waste trying to figure that out.
Still, I freaked. All I could think of was my friend who had been in this hospital and picked up a serious infection. And I didn’t know any doctors there. So we called Dr. Arce, Ryan’s otorrinolaringologo [oh-toe-REEN (and you gotta do the trill with the rrs there)-oh-lah-reen-HO-lo-go, I think… means ear, nose, throat person]. When I told the CIMA doctor I was taking Mo to see Dr. Arce, his eyes got very big, he looked very impressed and humbled actually! Dr. Arce is the man. He put Mo in Clinica Bíblica immediately hooked up to a steady stream of IV antibiotics.
Neither Hal or I put our faith in traditional medicine. It’s a fact that more people die of medical treatment than from anything else. More people get infections in a hospital than anywhere else. But at some point, as a parent, you shut down and you need an expert and you have to put your trust somewhere else because you just don’t have the depth of information necessary to make a smart informed decision. We had to turn it over. Thank God for the internet and for placing Dr. Arce in our path. If you are going to go with traditional medicine, you want someone with experience who is not an hysteric and not hungry for surgery. We got him.
As we were preparing for the trip to see Dr. Arce, Ryan delighted in telling Mo about the scoping he was going to get. Nice, huh? But I’m thinking how odd it is that both boys have serious sinus infections requiring life-changing treatment IN A SINGLE MONTH. I don’t have the answer, but factors under consideration are:
- The rainy season which by all accounts is nearly as bad as last year’s which was the worst anyone remembers in many, many years. My angel pharmacist, Leah, says if you could see the air in Costa Rica during the rainy season, it would be a cloud of organisms. So much crap is pulled up from the ground during the pounding relentless rains, it floats around. Unseen and breath-able.
- Speaking of crap, Mo weed-whacked the grass last week. With three dogs, you can imagine there’s a bit of doggie do laying around. When whacking, you occasionally hit a doggie do land mine: bits flying everywhere, including on you, and a fine doggie do mist that you inhale… Mo got annoyed with the plastic face mask and took it off, then later complained about stuff hitting him in the face. If there were a sinus (or any) infection already established, doggie do could actually be dangerous. Why does this not occur to intelligent adults? It’s 100% disgusting bacteria; of course, it’s dangerous!
- We’ve made a lot of dietary changes around here lately, adding a boatload of supplements including GSE for yeast control. What I didn’t take seriously enough is that, when yeast dies off, it creates toxins in your system. So you take activated charcoal 45 minutes after the GSE to absorb those toxins. We have not been strict about this part because there were no obvious die-off symptoms (headache, nervousness – there’s a list). But if you have yeast and you kill it, those toxins are definitely created whether you see die-off symptoms or not. Toxins make infections worse. I never put this together. I have now. I think it’s a serious contender for intensifying this infection. (Mothers feel guilty for everything… trying not to go there, just looking at the evidence.)
- This whole front-yard-does-not-drain-during-the-rainy-season and that’s-where-the-septic-tank-is thing. What is the air quality around our house?
- Not to mention the fact that there are no air vents in any bathrooms, tico-style. So… what is the air quality IN our house? I’m putting all this together and wondering right out loud how safe is our air-quality around here. How much, if anything, do these details contribute, especially combined?
Mo just walked in and wants to do some sanding on an air gun, then spray paint it. Hal and I both leaped up and said no way until we get some cute blue face masks and he must wear the eye protection gear, no ifs ands or buts about it, is that clear??? He kinda backed off and said, “yeah, ok, whatever.” He’s now playing his guitar in his room. That’s safe, right?
We’re glad to hear Mo is better.
Let’s see. Sally serves spa food. Dog runs away. Both boys get sick. Hmmm.
Goodness, we are funny, aren’t we? Wait till you see what I feed you when you get here. What day is that, exactly?
Oh no! What a crazy month. Glad both kids are okay though. Sounds like you need a massage and a vacation.
Yeah!!! I’m having that massage this week: my theatre buddies are having a “spa day” at a friend’s guesthouse to celebrate several birthdays… Since mine is one of them, I can hardly NOT go, right? Of course, I know exactly where to go for vacation information too… I want to go to those beach places I see there. Rainy season is getting a little dreary… good thing we are at the END!!!
Wow. That’s all I got.
Except glad that you are on top of things over there.
Hugs!
I’ll go and have a margarita for ya. And may the next 30 days be event free. amen.
Last night as Hal was drinking his glass of red wine, I was so stressed, I was jealous of him getting a drink and me not. It’s rare that happens… SO HAVE TWO MARGARITAS, por favor!!! Gosh, I feel better already. thank you.
Boy, you’re really making the rounds of the hospitals! Catolica for Ryan, then CIMA & HCB for Morgan. I’m not especially skeptical of modern Western medicine (Dad was a doctor, Mom a nurse; which isn’t to say that we think the system is perfect). I’d say it’s a blessing you have so many quality hospitals & doctors close by to choose from. Glad to hear they’re on the mend. By the way, I have a picture of myself from when I was around 21 with half of my face swollen from some infection–looks much worse than Mo’s picture above. To make things worse it was my first Christmas away from home and I was by myself. But I had just gotten myself this cool new Canon A-1 camera, so I turned it on myself. Anyway, I survived.
On a different topic, my Yahoo RSS feed for “A Broad” says there’s a post here called “Costa Rica Reading & Necessities” but when I click on it I get a 404 File Not Found error. Did you start and then pull something?
…Chuck
Wow – that’s some scary stuff. Glad to hear it turned out ok.
Hi Chuck – yes I tried posting my amazon store on that page but couldn’t get it to work right, so I deleted it. Needs to much html mucking around and I’m too picky… another day!
We have been mostly fortunate to get good doctors. I think the problem is that the FDA and Big Pharma don’t want anyone using any natural remedies. And we have a hard time remembering doctors are human. Doctors sometimes forget that, too. Like lawyers.
You aren’t a lawyer, are you?
Yep, Arp. Darned scary!!!
I’ll never look at doggy-doo the same again…or weed whackers. And the term “doggy-doo mist” is indelibly branded just above my cerebral cortex. I’m not sure how I feel about that at the moment…but I’m glad Mo is ok.
Nope, not a lawyer. My sister and some cousins are, though. My dad, being a doctor, was particularly not fond of lawyers some years ago (about the time his daughter, son-in-law, and nieces were becoming lawyers). He saw a bumper sticker at the time that he liked: “Support your local trial lawyer. Send your child to med school.”
…Chuck (Still haven’t done any Spanish since last writing…)
Je-SUS, have you ever been through the ringer! Poor Mo. I sure hope things are better and you are right to be the bulldog you are and get the best care for your family. I think it might be from your house.
I pick up poop with a little shovel and bag it for the trash. At my house, there was no S-curve for the sewage and the toxins were seeping back into my house. I hope you can find the cause.
Having both children with infections is very suspicious. Hang tough girl, you’ll get to the bottom of this I feel sure!
Yes, thank you, David. I thought of “doggy-doo mist” all by myself. You may use it!!!
That’s funny, Chuck! And too true. One of the reasons medical care is so expensive: malpractice insurance.
I am very suspicious, Teri. I’ll get to the bottom of it. Counting the hours till rainy season is over right now… two days to official end – surely only a week or so more till we dry out!!! Pura vida.
Hi, I just discovered your blog yesterday, and I’ve been enjoying it tremendously. For the Costa Rica info, of course, but also for all the other stuff that could be anywhere.
I wanted to pass along something regarding the sinus infection. I’m prone to getting serious sinus infections, because I have severe allergies to everything under the sun, and also because I live in a hot, moldy, humid location. But I have no health insurance and don’t put a lot of faith in doctors, either. The one thing I have found that will knock a sinus infection out is garlic. I eat 4-5 cloves of raw garlic before bed and the next morning I feel fine. I continue on the garlic for several days though, just to make sure it’s completely gone. If I didn’t have to work around other people, I’d take it throughout the course of the day as well.
By the way, the easiest way I’ve found to get it down is to eat it along with a piece of heavily buttered bread.
And along the same lines, vitamin C does wonders in an emergency for allergic reactions. I went into anaphylactic shock once at 4 a.m. – hives, my face swelled up tremendously, and I started having trouble breathing. I didn’t have any vitamin C in the house, so I made myself a cup of triple strength rose hip tea, and it did the trick.
Hopefully, you’ll never need to use either of those two remedies, but it’s good to know about them, just in case!
We have used raw garlic for other things, eat a clove with our vitamins in the am. But this sounds like a wonderful home cure – I will definitely try it! Thank you.
Everything goes down better with heavily buttered bread. It’s a cure all by itself.
We also eat tons of C and drink tea. Good to know C will help with anaphylactic shock! I will get rose hips tea in the house today.
Ryan will sometimes eat something that gives him the dry cough and throat scratch – the two major symptoms that he’s eaten something he shouldn’t have (like peanuts or corn… as in popcorn). Drinking lots of water helps as does a hot shower and a neti pot. Will do the tea as well – he loves tea.
Thank you! You probably know this but http://www.curezone.com would love to hear this experience. I’ve gotten some good suggestions over there…