Chapter 20
Jeffee Gets Infected Finger
Another strange event happened to me. As you read elsewhere here, when I talk about the great Internal Review move, again a seemingly routine event, has an abnormal reaction for good old Jeffee. Our whole office got involved for about a week and packed up everything in our old building, Building 151 and moved it directly to the building right in front of our building, Building 143. Even though we had professional movers under contract that helped us pack up the stuff as you can guess a lot of the work we had to do ourselves. So basically the movers carried our boxes we packed up and a filing cabinet, small credenza, all our paintings hanging on the walls and everything else to the new building and then we had to unpack everything.
I wore my bummy clothes and sneakers, very comfortable, while doing all the unpacking because it was pretty hot and sweaty work because our new Building 143 didn't have quite the good air conditioning that our old building had. Though we did get one break; I swear to God about a day before we moved out, the air conditioning in our old Building 151 died. So it was hotter than hell.
So we left the doors open on both sides of the building, the front and back and wouldn't you know it, one of the swallows that build the nest on our porch, (swallows always like to build nests underneath the eves and a roof so they don't get rained upon). Our smart swallow bird flew into our office. And we tried all day to get the silly bird to fly out but all he kept doing was flying from one of the high ceiling lights in our building to one of the other high ceiling lights that are 15 feet off the ground floor because our old building had very high ceilings.
So finally we have got all the boxes over to the new building and spent maybe two or three more days unpacking everything; we had a hell of a lot of boxes. But everything seemed fine until about the last day of the move when I noticed that my right index finger started to hurt.
I didn't think much about that finger; I figured arthritis or something was just acting up a little bit but starting the next day, it really hurt like hell and that I noticed my finger was swollen. So I figured I got a splinter or something caught in my finger and eventually it would work its way out. I always get cactus needles and other things stuck in my finger and eventually I get him out.
My finger kept getting worse and worse and after about five or six days it was hugely swollen and had this big white pussy-looking area that started to scare me. My wife and my boss have the same kind of thinking along the lines of amateur doctoring and they both said - just pierce it with a needle and it will get better. So amateur doctors who don't know anything about disease, infection, convinced me that I would go see a doctor.
I planned to go to the doctor when I got off work early at three o'clock on Thursday, April 7, 2011. Early in the morning; my finger really started bothering me, it was so bad I couldn't really even type with it on the computer because just touching the keyboard hurts because my finger was swollen and very painful. Finally I told my boss around 1:30 PM I am starting to feel sick all over so I'm going to leave work early, take an hour to half of sick leave, and go see the doctor.
I run over to the Thousand Oaks clinic which is maybe half a mile from my house and I've been there before and they're very nice people. Course I don't have an appointment so I run in there and basically tell them know I'm here because I have kind of an emergency as my finger is hurting like hell and I would like the doctor to see what's the matter.
It's very nice there but even very nice people can be very slow and this is typical whenever I go to a doctor's office; I waited and waited and waited. And doctor’s offices have an interesting combination. I've found this true every single doctor’s office I ever went to. First, they have the outside waiting area and then you go up to the counter and see somebody at the counter and then you wait to be called.
Then when they finally call you, you get faked out and think you're actually going to see a doctor soon. Then they play the game of the assistant will come in and take your blood pressure and your temperature, the basics of a medical checkup and then they say the fateful words that will mean you sitting in that room for a very long time – the doctor will see you shortly.
Actually the doctor will see you longly, never shortly. So I played the game and luckily brought a magazine with me. I think I got to read it twice before finally a very nice doctor came in after I'd been waiting in that room for around one hour. After about 50 minutes which is good for me because I'm very impatient, I went out to see somebody at the front desk to let her know I was still alive in the room and had been there for an hour and I'd really appreciate it if they put in the big-screen TV and a very comfortable recliner rather than a crappy straight back chair which wasn't too comfortable to sit in for an hour in a small room not much bigger than a closet; so don't go to the doctor's office if you suffer from claustrophobia.
This is my diagnosis from the very nice doctor who comes in to see me. He takes one look at my finger and says “Oh you have Paronychia" or in-grown fingernail disease. This after my finger had been swollen for a week. I automatically assumed I had a cactus needle or something stuck in me my finger and remembered what they say about assuming: write the word on the blackboard and then you'll see that when you assume something you make an "ass" out of "U" and "me".
And then the doctor scared me because he took a look at my chart and said: "How long have you been taking high blood pressure medicine?" That shook me up because I told him I've never suffered from high blood pressure and did not take high blood pressure medicine and most of my readings are quite normal around 130/80. The doctor said that my blood pressure reading was 175/110 which is quite high. That scared me.
And then the doctor made me feel a little better when he said that if you don't suffer from high blood pressure, the high reading today is probably due to the pain and infection that is spreading from your finger throughout your body. That made me feel good and bad at the same time.
Than the doctor said: "I prescribe an antibiotic to get rid of the infection because your body can't rid itself of the infection itself because there is very poor blood flow in your fingertips and so the blood is not getting there with the little white blood cells to kill the bacteria"; he said if I take the antibiotics for a week it will cure my fingernail disease.
And then he was nice enough to give me a painkiller too but so far after one day of taking plenty of the antibiotics and plenty of the pain pills I'm still in pain and basically my little swollen finger has gone from white to a lovely shade of green and then turned a whiter shade green all away down about half an inch of my finger. It's very red and inflamed and the back of my index finger is very swollen and very tender and hurts if I put any pressure on it. I'm hoping over the weekend my finger makes a rapid improvement and I get back to using my finger like I used to. It is now the beginning of June a month and a half is my fingernail infection and guess what my finger still is not completely back to normal and does not quite look the same as my other index finger
Then I was kidding my boss and Carol at work that this had to be caused by work so I want to put in for Workmen's Compensation. They both laughed because I would have to prove that it happened at work.
I easily can prove it happened at work because the doctor said this disease, Paronychia, was caused by an ingrown fingernail that broke the barrier between the proximal and lateral nail fold - whatever that means. And then I thought to myself and I even commented to my boss at the time that moving all those boxes for about a week caused all of my fingernails to break very badly. I had to keep cutting and trimming them so they wound up being very short they were a mess and I had to trim them.
I am firmly convinced that my fingernail disease was caused by moving all those boxes at work or is that as they say “No good deed goes unpunished” which is Murphy's Law.
So I had to pay 20 bucks for the doctor's visit as the deductible under Blue Cross, and then I got a break on the two medicines that the doctor prescribed to HEB (our local grocery store and pharmacy).The pain medicine and the antibiotics only cost me a $1.61 which wasn't too bad. Of course nobody else in the office, my boss or Carol got any kind of disease or any kind of problem from the moving, just good old lucky Jeffee. So once again I say is the title of my book loudly screams: “My only crime was being born." It’s June and the finger still isn’t completely normal.