One thing is for sure.

My life is never boring.

I woke up about 5:30 this morning because I had to go to the bathroom.  While I was awake, I realized that my right forearm, where that mysterious "spot" I mentioned yesterday is, hurt.  Like, down to the muscle.  Now, y'all know me.  I am a bit paranoid.  I am not a very calm person when it comes to possible medical problems.  (I can't decide if that's understandable considering how many real medical problems I have had, or weird considering how many real medical problems I have had.)  I was panicking.  All I could think about was MRSA, and OMG what if it's a MRSA infection, and not again, and NOOOOOO I HAVE TO GO TO NASHVILLE!!!!  In retrospect, I'm fairly certain that satan was thoroughly enjoying preying on my weakness at that point. But somehow I finally got back to sleep about 6:15.

Around noon, I called Mom to get her opinion, and she said as long as I didn't have a fever and nothing started oozing out of it, to just keep rubbing antibiotic cream on it.

Yeah, I tried to go with that, but like I said, Mal? NOT CALM.

I didn't have a fever with the staph in my foot, and I didn't have a fever with the staph in my lungs.  With the staph meningitis, I had a fever of almost 101 according to my thermometer, but not by the paramedics' when they picked me up.  I started taking my temperature and sometimes it would say 100+, then it'd say 98+, then it'd say 99+, and then it'd say 98 again, so I have no idea whether or not I actually had a fever.

Do you think thermometers can sense panic?

So I called Mom about 8623 times before she actually called me back, and I decided to go to the ER because my neuroticism and paranoia was not going to let me get on a plane to a different state without knowing whether or not I had a MRSA infection growing on my arm.  The only thing worse than getting admitted to the hospital is getting admitted to the hospital 12 hours away from home.

I called an ambulance because of course every friend I have either doesn't have a car or was not on campus this weekend.  I told them it was not an emergency because I could walk and breathe and wasn't bleeding an all of that.  One of the paramedics was very nice, one of the paramedics was very cold.  Thankfully, the nice one, Alec, was in the back with mean and the not-so-nice one was the driver.  Alec was cool.  He asked me about school and my major and what I want to do after I graduate and all sorts of stuff.  And he was really cute, too. :)

This was the fastest ER trip possibly ever in the history of the universe.  I was back in my dorm in under 2.5 hours.  Apparently, it's just a minor skin infection, but it's really good I caught it now because it would only get worse and deeper.  They gave me a prescription for an antibiotic, but by the time I got out, all the pharmacies were closed and there's this dumb rule that because I was already discharged they couldn't give me anything.  Which was lame, but I guess I get it. ;)  I certainly wasn't going to bill another $200 to get a shot.

Campus Safety came and picked me up.  Yay small schools.

I still need prayers, though.  They drew a circle on my arm around the infected area, and the doc said that as long as it doesn't spread, then I can still go to Nashville, but if it spreads outside the circle by Monday morning, I have to go to the hospital.  That's why Mom and I really wanted me to get some antibiotic tonight, but there's nothing I could do.  Elizabeth is taking me to the pharmacy as soon as it opens tomorrow.  Please pray that the 4 doses of antibiotic I will get tomorrow will be enough to keep it from spreading before Monday.  I don't think I need to tell you how badly I want to be okay for this trip, or how much it means to me.  Y'all know, y'all know.

So yeah, that's the deal.  Thanks for praying.