Spent 7 hours in the ER after work yesterday. My incision had been healing just fine and then I had swelling and pain, and the middle third of the incision got so swollen, red, hot and super tender to touch. After my last patient I started really feeling the swelling and little intermittent sharp pains into the whole left side of my face and figured it was probably a good idea to go to urgent care. My bp at one point was ( 145/92; 138/98; and then at its highest) 154/113. Pain did that, which is crazy!  Because I drove myself and wanted to be able to drive myself home, I opted for IV toradol (have no idea if thats misspelled or not, whatever, it's just like super motrin lol) and thankfully that helped. And started on antibiotics while there. I sincerely hope to not have to do that again, like, *ever* lol. That being said, if you come across a Nicole Kremer, family nurse practitioner or Duke Raleigh ER Dr William Carter, you are in capable, professional, knowledgeable, and compassionate, hands and you're gonna be ok❤️

Other than my oncology team 3 years ago, I haven't had the most positive interactions with Duke Dr's the past year or two. It is what it is 🤷🏼‍♀️ These 2 providers  really restored my faith in our health system yesterday, no joke, I'm grateful for their help 🙌

And good news with CT scan ruling out abscess, so it's just cellulitis/infection of my craniotomy incision. (I'll spare you any more pics of that because, eww, gross. 🤢😅)

Prescribed a week of antibiotics followed by a week of steroids, and a couple days home from work to recup and I'll be good to go again by the end of the week. 😊🙏

I hope if you're reading this now, you had a good day and if you are a health care provider and you haven't heard it today: what you do matters. And thank you.

❤️❤️❤️