My leg is going to rot and fall off

Well, not quite, but over the past week, I have had a very bizarre infection develop on my left leg just below my  knee cap.  It started out looking like a little bit like razor burn last Sunday and by Tuesday night, Kristen said that it looked like I had ringworm (the inflammation was definitely in a circle).  So I called for a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday morning and by the time I got to the doctor Friday morning, I had a circle the size of a quarter that was raised up a least a quarter of an inch and oozing yellow fluid.  There was also a ring of red around the circle that looked inflamed.  The doctor took one look at it, said it wasn’t ringworm and prescribed antibiotics for me (3 times a day for 10 days).  She said that it looked like some kind of localized bacterial infection.  So she took a sample of the liquid and said that the lab would grow a culture of it to find out what kind of bacteria is is.  This will take days evidently (because the bacteria has to grow).  So in the meantime, I have to put hot compresses on it twice a day, I have to bandage it, I’m taking the antibiotics, and I do have a topical athlete’s foot cream to put on it (in case it has some sort of fungal component to it.)  Today, I have a big patch of red itchy skin below the growth (or whatever you want to call it) and my whole body is super achy.  Plus I think I have a low-grade fever.  So I think my body is fighing whatever it is that I have.  I called in sick for tomorrow and am just going to try to sleep a lot and hopefully let my body work on killing this infection.  I will unfortunately have to go into school at 7:00 to get my sub plans ready but then I’ll come back home and go to sleep.

It’s pretty scary actually.  It feels like I’m in a third world country or something.  My mind of course keeps jumping to all the nasty things it could be (like those flesh-eating bacteria) but so far my leg is intact.  If I don’t feel better by Tuesday, I’m going to call the doctor again.  I do have a follow up appointment in a week and a half and the doctor did tell me that it would probably take that long for it to heal.  Anyway, I would appreciate your prayers – I don’t like being sick like this!  (Be glad I don’t have a digital camera.  Otherwise, I would probably have posted a really disgusting picture of my leg).