A first for me this week, being admitted to a hospital. It all escalated rather quickly.
From the dog having one of her infrequent ex-rescue-dog-returns-to-feral moments on Sunday and sinking her teeth into my little finger, through it going septic despite a lot of antiseptic cleaning out, a local NHS First Aid clinic, the hospital outpatient hand injury clinic, and finally two nights on a ward. Surgery under local anaesthetic to open up my hand and clean out the infection, lots of dressings, antibiotic jabs in the middle of the night, the works. Back home now, antibiotic pills, a return on Friday to check up on its healing.
We are accustomed to modern medicine, it seems routine, mundane even. Truth is though this was something that could well have killed me a hundred years ago. People still lose digits and even hands, as my surgeon pointed out it's no laughing matter.
So, a brush with mortality. Guess it had to happen, sooner or later.
Glad it wasn't worse.
ReplyDeleteIts surprising the things that we take for granted now, availability of medicines, highly trained doctors and surgeons, advanced surgical techniques.
So many things that even 20 years ago we'd have only dreamed of.
I am often grateful that I live in 21st century London, for all teh social reasons, it is good to be reminded that a hundred years ago I would probably not have got past nine years old, certainly not to be current great age! We often think about teh big things, but forget that teh little things were once big things!
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that it is a small miracle that we live as long and well as we do, and that is due to evolution. The part that is medical has definitely made it possible for us to dance around those imbalances that in the past killed us off early. Now the medical community is warning us that we are living too long and can expect dementia to accompany most of us at end. Better than blood poisoning? I think so too!
ReplyDeleteDodged mortality a few times along the way too, we still take for granted the antibiotics which are fast loosing effectiveness. I have always been a bit wary of dogs with jaws full of sharp teeth and a dislike for cyclists... Glad that you are on the mend and hopefully ready for the cider season.
ReplyDeleteGlad you survived the onslaught. It couldn't have been much fun. I hope the dog was sorry.
ReplyDeleteLucy
Thanks all :) The dog is not quite back in my good books yet.
ReplyDeleteNot the best thing to happen in not the best of months of happenings.
There is a lot of stuff in the news about antibiotic resistance, I was thus slightly surprised to find that I was given penicillin - a somewhat old-school antibiotic. But on reflection it makes sense, the majority of run-of-the-mill bugs out there in the world are still as they always were. The news seems to focus on antibiotic overuse in the medical profession, speaking as someone who grew up in and around farms I'd say tackling that would be pointless without also tackling overuse in agriculture.
Infections, from the bite of a dear pet or whatever, can be deadly. Certainly, in your case antibiotics were required but many doctors still prescribe far too many antibiotics. Who knows, someday we might be back to where we were 100 years ago. Glad you're OK. We need our guru!
ReplyDeleteCalie