MrPloppy vs. the mosquito (possibly)

MrPloppy got bitten by a mosquito last night (or it may have been a spider, or some other nasty bitey type thing – when he noticed the bite, there had been a mosquito buzzing around, but he’d also spent the day gardening, so almost anything could have been caught in his sleeve). This morning, the area round the bite (which was on his wrist) was looking a bit red and swollen. I suggested he should go to the doctor, but he said it was probably just a bit of an allergy or something, and took an antihistamine. I left for work, insisting that if it got any worse he was to go to the doctor.

Of course, he didn’t, and when he came to meet me after work (we were supposed to be going to the supermarket), his whole lower arm was swollen and red, and very hot. He was still insisting it wasn’t anything serious and wasn’t worth going to the doctor about, so I took him over to the on-campus chemist, to see if they had anything to take down the swelling a bit at least. The chemist took one look at his arm and said “Go to a doctor right now. There’s a 24-hour surgery in Riccarton.” (I’m afraid I didn’t manage to restrain myself from saying “I told you so” at this point, and for the rest of the evening…) We decided to give our own doctor a try first before going to the 24-hour surgery, and somehow managed to catch a bus just in time to reach the medical centre a few minutes before it closed. The receptionist told us it was really too late to see a doctor, but our doctor happened to walk into the waiting room just then, obviously on his way home, and when he saw MrPloppy’s arm (the red was spreading even further now, and there was a long line of red stretching up his arm along the vein (or artery, or whatever – the blood thing), which apparently is a strong sign of infection) he said he would have a quick look at it.

It didn’t take long for him to decide that the bite was definitely infected, and he gave MrPloppy a prescription for some antibiotics, and said he really should start taking them straight away. Of course, by this stage all the nearby chemists were closed, so we had to get back on another bus to go out to the mall in Papanui, which is open late on Fridays. We managed to find a chemist there, and got the prescription filled (and MrPloppy took a pill straight away as instructed), then decided as we were there and it was getting late, we might as well just grab something to eat in the food court instead of going home and cooking dinner. Then we still needed to go to the supermarket, so we finally got home about three hours after we left my office…

At least the good news was that insect bites are covered by ACC (yes, really!), so the doctor’s fee and the prescription were subsidised. Which was a releif, because life has been a bit expensive lately.

Dramatic photo (though not as dramatic as it was earlier, because he’d had an icepack on his arm for a while before this was taken, so the swelling had gone down a little bit):

Of course, the plans for tonight had been to come home and do some last minute tidying up before the Outlaws arrive tomorrow, but MrPloppy’s latest medical adventures kind of interrupted that a bit. Looks like we’ll be getting up early in the morning instead…

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, despite the damage I think MrPloppy won the contest – the mosquito got squished.)