Elizabeth’s Journal

Sausage Finger

Just when I thought it was going to be a relaxing evening at home—Jonathan and I had made a trip to the Blanton Museum in the afternoon, then stopped by Jennifer & Stepan’s to collect Kayleigh (and lucky Jonathan got a chance to hold Simone and sing her a song for a little bit), and we made it home by 5:30 p.m. Dale was already home, albeit working and oblivious to any conversation directed his way, and things were easy.

Then Kayleigh, who was sitting on my lap to eat her dinner as she was quite tired, commented that she couldn’t bend her finger and wondered why not. Since that morning I had treated an (note: a single one) ant bite, probably a fire ant since it made a nasty white pustule, on her index finger, I was mildly concerned and took a look. Her finger was clearly quite swollen, but I thought to myself, well, you know, I’m sure that will go down in a couple of days.

But then I noticed that there was a red streak extending from the base of her finger all the way across the top of her hand to her wrist. I know that red streaks are a big flag to seek medical advice immediately, so I abandoned her in the kitchen to go look it up at my computer. After about five minutes of checking various sites, I called our After Hours clinic to speak with a pediatric nurse. She consulted with a doctor, who said to come on there rather than going to an ER—but definitely come in. So off we went.

Kayleigh was great. She answered all their questions and let them take her temperature, blood pressure, etc. The good things were that she has no fever, the tip of her finger has plenty of blood rushing into it after pressure is applied (apparently one of the biggest dangers of a swollen finger is that it can cut off circulation to the tip of the finger—I never knew that), and she was fine with the doctor manipulating her finger quite a bit. But when the doctor took a good look at the streak on her hand, she realized that it didn’t stop at the wrist . . . it goes all the way up past her elbow.

So Kayleigh is on some strong antibiotic, which she did a fantastic job taking even though it has a sulfuric smell, and Dale as always was a huge help in making everything painless because he had her laughing as she took it. Our things to watch in the night are to make sure that she doesn’t develop a fever, that the pain doesn’t suddenly increase, and that the streak doesn’t extend past the mark that the doctor put on her arm indicating its reach at the time of the appointment.

I rubbed OTC hydrocortisone cream on it just before putting her in bed, just in case it helped reduce the swelling (she also did a warm water bath for her hand as per doctor’s recommendation), and I didn’t like touching her finger. It’s really kind of gross how it feels, like it’s about to burst open. Both it and the part of her hand where the red streak runs is very swollen indeed. Cross your fingers that the antibiotic does the job and makes it all go down in the night. And that I don’t end up writing my next post about our middle-of-the-night ER visit!

Posted by elizabeth at August 21, 2008 10:06 PM