status update: re-prescribed

Yerp: as suspected, when I went to the skin clinic, I ended up getting a prescription (are we on familiar enough terms that I can say "scrip" from now on?) for four more days' worth of meds—enough to carry me over the weekend. This time, I was also scheduled to see the doc on Monday morning at 10 a.m. She was wearing a mask today for some reason; maybe she was sick herself, or dealing with patients who are sick along with having skin problems. The meds got changed slightly; my antacid tablet got switched out with a probiotics tablet after the doc asked me whether I'd had any digestive problems (the Korean word for "diarrhea" sounds dangerously close to "salsa"). I said no, hence the switch.

The doc palpated my neck in a bit more detail; she uttered an ajumma-style noise that registered as somewhere near the centroid of surprise, disappointment, and disgust. I could tell she had expected my swelling to have gone way down. Well, without a proper lance-and-drain (watch this gross-but-satisfying video of cyst drainage if you dare), I don't see that happening anytime soon. As she was making the noise, I told her that, even though the lump wasn't shrinking, I had felt some improvement, e.g., now that I was on meds, I could sleep again after three nights of being unable to sleep.

So the plan is to take more meds, go back on Monday... and probably get another few days' worth of meds, unless Doctor Skin decides she's had enough, and she whips out her needle and sterile gauze. I might have that to look forward to.

Oh, yeah, before I forget: I've been trying very hard not to scratch the back of my neck, but Wednesday night, I scratched a bit and apparently knocked aside a scab that had been plugging a hole that went directly into part of the lump on my neck. I could feel fluid running out; when I dabbed at the wound with tissue, I saw it was blood mixed with lymph and something else that looked like pus. Seizing the opportunity, I tried squeezing along opposite sides of the bottom circumference of my neck lump, hoping to cause a mighty eruption of goo that would be accompanied by a sudden feeling of relief. No dice; whatever this wound was, it didn't lead into the center of the mass. But the pus that did come out was instructive: unlike the usual gross greenish or yellowish color, this pus had highlights of brown and gray in it, leading me to believe I might have been looking at dead bacteria—a sign that the meds were doing their work. I took some antibacterial wipes and disinfected the area around the wound as best I could; everything had re-scabbed over by the time I visited the doc the following day. Currently, I'm fighting the urge to lance the pussy lump myself (that's \ˈpʌsi\, not \ˈpʊsi\). Probably not wise.