• Tag Archives cellulitis
  • Auntie Biotic

    Spring                                                       Beltane Moon

    Kate is home and her arm (cellulitis) looks much better.  Still a ways to go both on the antibiotics and healing, but the right direction.  Among the vagaries of strong antibiotic treatment is its kill all nature.  Like Round-up can’t tell the difference between weed and grass, most antibiotics can’t tell the difference between the pathogens and the friendly flora and fauna of your gut.

    As a large symbiotic organism with literally billions of helper one-celled creatures throughout our body, it’s not a good idea to kill the guest-workers.  It would be sort of like throwing all the immigrants in jail (or deporting them) that you need to do the work in agriculture, manufacturing and domestic services.  Oh, wait…

    How does the old song go?  You don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone.  The digestive tract needs these wee beasties, needs them bad.  When they get killed off in sufficient quantities, the intestinal tract can get thrown way outta whack.

    Now, I’m not sayin’ the cure is worse than the disease, but at certain points in time it can feel like a toss up.  This very problem can cause cancer patients to push away chemo-therapy, concluding that in this case, in spite of a terrible disease, that the cure is worse.

    A lot of medicine relies on harsh chemicals, the internal equivalents of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.  It’s popular in some circles to acknowledge this and give a blanket condemnation of Western medicine.  This kind of criticism only makes sense in a world where dying from an infection triggered during gardening seems impossible.  Why impossible?  Because we have the harsh chemicals to combat the even harsher outcomes of untended infection.

    Overuse has begun to erode our edge against infections, so we might again have an era when the yearning will be for the time when we could beat stuff back.


  • The Quotidian

    Spring                                                            New Beltane Moon

    Kate has taken her still healing cellulitis off to Colorado for a weekend with the grandkids.  Gabe’s fourth birthday is tomorrow.  Her arm looks much better than it did on Monday, swelling much less pronounced and the area of red, heated skin has reduced considerably.  It took four doses of IV antibiotics and the follow-up oral meds to get this infection under control.  No fun at all.

    (Gabe and Grandpop, January, 2012)

    Meanwhile back at the apiary, I’m going to check the bees tomorrow for larvae, need for syrup and pollen patties.  A few garden chores tomorrow, too, notably digging up the potato patch and amending the soil.  I can’t plant potatoes in the main vegetable garden for a couple more years because the beetles found them last fall.  Too many to pick off and drown in soapy water.

    Also, I really need to fix the tire on the Celica, get it started and get the tire repaired or buy a new one.  Then, I’m going to give it away one way or another.  Know anyone that needs a car?  I may have a taker, but I’m not sure.  If not, I’ll pass it on to someone for free.  It has 280,000 miles on it, but it runs well.  We’ve decided to go with one car for financial reasons and it’s the one with the most mileage, so it has to go.


  • Ah.

    Spring                                                          Bee Hiving Moon

    A much better sounding Kate called a couple of times this AM.  The swelling has begun to recede which means she’s responding to the IV antibiotics.  Which, thank God, means it’s not one of the resistant strains of strep infections.  She will have her fourth IV infusion at 4 pm, then she’ll come home.

    She ordered grilled chicken breast and vegetables for dinner tonight.  The chef is on duty.

    She has to keep her arm elevated at or above her shoulder, will have oral antibiotics, but, and this is the really important part, she will be able to go to Denver.  She would not have been a happy camper if she had been unable to see Gabe and Ruth (grandkids).

    So.  A big whew here.