That's Disgusting!!

A week or so ago Paulette noticed a bump near her right underarm and assumed it was an ingrown hair. She tried popping it and she even had me try popping it. I know that sounds pretty disgusting but keep reading it gets worse. Get your mental camera's ready and picture me with a small mag light in my mouth, tweezers in my right hand, and my left pointer finger and thumb intently playing with this lump under Paulette's raised right arm. Pretty picture right? She insisted that there had to be an ingrown hair in there somewhere and I insisted that there was not

Everyday she kept complaining that the pain was becoming worse and worse. By Monday she could barely use her right arm because it hurt so badly. Tuesday she was crying and could barely sleep because of the pain but still did not want to see a doctor because "it costs money." I think the intense pain and my insistence finally convinced her to see a doctor on Wednesday. She called her mom to see if one of the doctors at her office would look at it and he said he didn't dare mess with it due to its proximity to the breast and the sensitive womanly stuff associated with it. Kolton had his 9 month visit that day so Paulette asked Kolton's doctor to at least look at it and he confirmed that she definitely needed to go see someone soon. Paulette found a doctor that could see her after lunch that same day and rather than leaving with relief, all she left with was a prescription for antibiotics. Frustrated, she talked to her mom who said the doctor at her office would look at it for her and as soon as he saw it he got on the phone and called a surgeon that he knew and they were able to squeeze Paulette in yesterday afternoon. I started working from home yesterday afternoon because we are having some remodeling done at the office (you can't convince me this was just chance) and I got home just in time to run over near the hospital, on the other side of town that Dylan and Hayden were both born at, and pick up Kolton and Hayden. I got back to the house in just enough time to get Dylan off the bus. Sometime around 6:00 she finally saw the surgeon who looked at it and immediately sent her to the hospital to get prepped for surgery. By 8:00 she was already out of the operating room and her mom got her home by 10:30pm. Her mom stayed the night since I couldn't get out of going to work this morning because my boss is out of town and the remodeling started this morning. Fortunately I am working from home for the next couple of weeks until the office is remodeled and that should be just enough time for her to recover. We have never been told exactly what is was, but from the little bit that Paulette has overheard from the second doctor and the surgeon we think it was either an infected node or infected gland. What caused it, why it spread all the way to her elbow, we may never know

Here are the gruesome details. Basically she has a giant hole in her right armpit. Literally, a GIANT hole! She has gauze jammed in the hole which has to be changed daily by a nurse. The hospital could not find any home nursing companies that worked for them that serviced our side of town so since we have a friend who is a nurse the hospital told us that she could come over and change the gauze. Here are some pictures so you can see what I am talking about.



This is the hole right after she got out of the shower prior to having it repacked with gauze. Gross right? I know what some of you are thinking, get your minds out of the gutter. This is a picture of her armpit not a different part of her anatomy. Sickos! Also in this picture you can see how red the underside of her arm is. The redness (infection) goes all the way down below her elbow.




This is the 1/2" wide gauze that Paulette pulled out of the hole while she was in the shower. I laid it on toilet paper on the tile in the kitchen to put its length in perspective. Each tile is 16"x16" so it is about 55" long. I think that is taller than Emily. Only about 3' of fresh gauze went back in the hole but she said she would rather give birth than go through that again. Unfortunately for her she has to go through it everyday until the wound is healed, at which time it may be stitched closed. She is a very pain tolerant person but this seems to be more than she can tolerate and I don't blame her.