More coherent update, I hope

So, recovery seemed to be going well until Friday. I felt very washed out on Friday and registered a very slight fever in the evening. Saturday my temp still ranged around in the 99 point whatever range. I phoned the plastic surgeon and didn't even get an answering machine; phoned my GP's office but never got a call back from the on-call doctor.

Sunday morning, more of the same-- and I discovered much later that I never took my morning meds, which may have contributed to the downward slide later. I played for worship, which will get its own post. When I got home my temp was over 100, and after a nap it hit 102 so we headed for Urgent Care. It was a comfortable place and not at all busy, so about as comfortable as such a visit can be. The doctor took the stitches out, took a sample for culturing and redressed the wound. He also changed my antibiotics. I did have a wait before the nurse came to discharge me, and felt increasingly miserable. When the nurse came in, he took one look and said he wanted another set of vitals. He took my temp over and over, and checked my chart, so of course I asked... 104.6. He left, and got authorization to give me a megadose of ibuprofen and my first antibiotic on the spot (and was muttering a bit about the doctor).

My temp dropped steadily the rest of the day; I felt truly dreadfully ill for several more hours, and then began to revive a bit. Today I'm mostly back to where I was on Saturday-- fever between 99 and 100, not doing much but sitting or sleeping. Tomorrow morning I see the plastic surgeon again, and might get results of the culture and a more targeted antibiotic. I am a bit nervous because the Urgent Care doc mentioned the dreaded words 'antibiotic resistant' as a possibility.

A friend and I have been remarking on how incidents like this shed light on the way illness and injury are portrayed in 19th century literature. If I am this miserable now, where would I be without those antibiotics and ibuprofen? Also the feeding of invalids. Yesterday I ate almost nothing; and even now, anything too rich, or a normal serving of anything, causes misery.

choir

My little choir at Delmar Prez is just 10 regulars, but they can do amazing things. We keep a calendar where folk can mark anticipated absences so I can plan music accordingly. Even so, when I realized that Pentecost fell on the holiday weekend, I made a point of specifically asking; 9 out of 10 said they could and would sing. I loaded up with more music than we normally do, to make rehearsal worthwhile, as this is the last time they'll sing.

When I got injured, early on Wednesday I sent email around asking folk to be as prompt as possible to rehearsal... and heard crickets for more than 24 hours. Then three people cancelled for practice. I had four women for rehearsal, and learned of one more cancellation for Sunday.

By Sunday I wasn't feeling well, and arrived at church very discouraged, expecting only the four women and one man. My husband doesn't sing parts well, but I told him I was desperate for support on the two passages that were supposed to be men only so he agreed to sit in. I told Pastor Karen how discouraged I was when I arrived, then went on about preparing... and the next time I turned around, Irene who thinks she is a natural baritone (probably isn't, but for Sunday it was fine) was sitting with the two men; Karen had recruited her. Then one of the cancellations showed up after all, and at the end of warmup another walked in, and they sang their hearts out, and even got applause once.

I also was helped out by a talented teenager who played a prelude on violin and postlude on piano with only a few days' notice. So in the end I felt well supported, despite some bad moments.