Update on “Face Gate”

If you follow me on IG (@journeyofphood) or read my post from earlier this week then you know I’ve been dealing with some RANDOM junk going on with MY FACE.

Usually random stuff happens to people around me but I don’t feel like it’s all that often that random stuff happens to me (aside from that time my pool polaris sprayed me directly into the eye…or that time I got hit in the face with a metal toy train…ok so maybe some randomness does happen sometimes haha). 

So here’s the full story!

Last weekend we went on the annual Parker Family vacation.

This year we went to Orlando. Not a Disney trip, just a cool condo/hang with the family trip.

On Friday the guys did their annual golf-till-we-drop day so the girls and kids did our annual fill-the-time-with-something-fun thing.

The thing we chose this year was to visit a Petting Farm place in the Orlando area.

It was super close to our condo and had a Groupon! It’s called Green Meadows Farm.

It was hot but not too bad b/c it was so shady.

We hadn’t ever been before and didn’t know going in that it was VERY hands on.

I’m ALL about some hands on experiences but this was A LOT.

We saw a little girl, who clearly was a regular, wearing plastic bags over her shoes and if we ever go again (big if haha) it’s def the route to take. 

It was a 2 hour guided tour and most of the animals we got to get in the pins with them.

Pet them, feed them. Super cool but SO MUCH POOP.

I do think the guy doing the tour mega dropped the ball on making sure everyone washed hands in-between each animal touching area.

I was also at a disadvantage b/c Tess wanted to walk everywhere and then would want me to pick her up. Poop shoes became poop all over Mommy. Lovely. 

We left at noonish and I clearly remember getting into the car and feeling a spot on my jawline.

I though “oh I got bit by something!”I also got a really bad headache from the pain in the jaw area and noticed a second spot in my brow line that also was painful.  

I’ve been struggling the past few months with freaking adult skin breakouts (which I’ve never had IN MY LIFE and the dr agrees I need to do some hormonal testing once my face situation is resolved) and I SOBBED that night when I washed my face b/c thee spots were SO RED and SO BIG and SO PAINFUL.

Since neither of them itched I thought they were just MASSIVE zits. 

Friday afternoon, not swollen or anything!

Saturday I just loaded it all up with makeup and tried to be in good spirits for the day with everyone.

I didn’t feel like myself but last year the family trip was hard on me emotionally so I thought maybe that was what was going on.

I still at that point thought pimples but as the day went on I got more and more miserable feeling. 

Celebrating Big Papa’s Birthday!

I took a nap and when I woke up my face was very swollen.

I had taken some Tylenol prior to the nap and it didn’t help at all.

I didn’t notice anything with my eye being swollen but my jaw area def was! I grew concerned bc a zit shouldn’t cause swelling. 

Since I clearly remember the moment getting in the car and thinking something bit  me, we all assumed it was a bite of some kind.

Our main concern was brown recluse because the area did look similar with a scab spot, white, then red. 

We googled a bunch and Court and Casey ran to the store and got some supplies.

We assumed try to treat it and get the “venom” out.

I just didn’t have a good feeling about it and the stories started coming out of people someone knew who had a bite and blah blah not good ending. I called a local urgent care and they were 15 min away and closed in 20 min so we rushed out the door to get to them!

We made an aspirin paste and put it on in hopes of drawing out the infection

We literally pulled into the parking lot AT 8:00. They were NOT HAPPY and I know 100% that it affected the care I was given.

The PA walked in and just did a quick glance then prescribed meds (which I couldn’t pick up until the next day due to everything being closed…how do WE have a 24 hour pharmacy in Valdosta but they don’t?!?!) and gave me a shot of meds.

We were in and out in like 20 minutes. He said it could be a bite or it could just be infection and it’s treated the same way. 

On the way home from urgent care 

the next morning 

(yes in black and white…I can’t handle it in color)

I didn’t sleep well AT ALL. I had really bad chills and couldn’t get comfortable and was in pain.

When I got up for the day I looked SO BAD. SO SO MUCH WORSE than the day prior.

My eye was SO red and huge and almost swollen to the point of difficulty opening it.

I couldn’t even open my mouth because it was swollen all the way from my ear lobe to my lips and down my neck. 

On top of the looks of it, it hurt.

And I felt super nauseous and was pouring sweat.

I don’t remember a whole lot clearly but I do remember sitting down by the toilet b/c I was scared I was gonna either puke or pass out or both.

They got me into the bed and everyone tried to decide what to do next!

(the purple line is pen we drew the night prior to see if the redness expanded)

On top of my issues, Big Daddy’s sister passed away the first night we arrived for the trip.

So Mr. Rusty and Mrs. Charlotte had already made the call to head home a day early in order to attend her funeral and be there for the family.

We had planned to stay the full trip but clearly that wasn’t in my best health interest.

Zach and everyone somehow watched our kids AND packed up ALL our stuff. I sat in the bed, half out of it. 

I slept on and off in the car the entire way home and when we got there Mrs. Charlotte came from the funeral and took me to the ER while Zach had the kids.

I’ll be the first to be honest about experiences and I hear ALL kinds of negative stuff about ER but it was a FABULOUS experience. They got us back SO FAST and the nurse was AMAZING. 

My hardest thing of childbirth: IV. I was freaking out that she had to give me one but she did so great with it and was very gentle and drew a ton of blood from that spot in case they needed to do surgery. 

fluids are my friend 🙂

The ER dr wasn’t so fabulous.

He came in and acted really super casual and like it was no biggie and then later came back in and acted like I’d have to come back in two days and get the spots “drained”. Pick a side dude. 

He said the cause of the issues is infection in my skin (so technically what’s wrong is called cellulitis).

He said either I got bit by something that caused the infection OR I had nasty bacteria on my hands and it got into my skin through a bite/cut/etc and caused the infection (I personally think I got bit by a mosquito b/c they were bad out there and they LOVE me and then I scratched it and got the germs in there b/c antibacterial soap don’t clean under those finger nails!). 

He gave me an IV of 6 TIMES the amount of antibiotic that I’d been given in the shot the night prior.

He also upped my prescription of Cleocin from 150 mg 3 times a day to 300 mg 4 times a day.

He said if it wasn’t completely gone by Tuesday (so 2 days away) to come back and he’d drain the areas. I told him I was a rule follower and if he had ANY tricks to help me heal I’d do em.

He said working out would help blood flow to the face and water water water. 

They did say my bloodwork came back with super high white blood cell count due to the infection but otherwise I looked ok!

Since we had originally planned to be on the trip until Monday, Zach didn’t work that day and I decided to go ahead and go to see MY dr.

I wanted them to look at it and assess it. I trust them more than some random ER guy. 

I went to our walkin clinic and it was pretty hilarious.

Basically at all my drs visits this week I’ve felt like I’m in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

ALL the staff everywhere I went would find excuses to come look at it haha I would offer them to take pics if they wanted bahaha

I felt REALLY good Monday. I looked a LOT better than Sunday morning and I didn’t feel chills or anything at all! It was a GOOD day overall even though it was a lot of sitting at the dr! 

My PA went and got another dr to look at it.

He prescribed steroids and couldn’t believe they had been prescribed already.

He also said to be prepared to get super sick on all the meds I was taking and to do a LOT of yogurt (actually the ER dr mentioned that too.

Like a container of yogurt 3 times a day PLUS probiotics). He said he did NOT want ANYONE draining it because there wasn’t anything to drain. 

I went into see a plastic surgeon that afternoon.

Kye had to have stitches recently (I know MY LIFE) and she did such a phenomenal job that I trust her completely.

I already had an appointment for that day in her office to talk about my skin concerns (the breakouts, not the obvious bite situation) so I kept the appointment and had her look at the spots.

She said if ANYONE does cut them that it’ll be her and that she’s hoping she won’t have to. 

Fuzzy chairs…dead giveaway that I’m at a plastic surgeon right?!

Feeling good! Looking improved!

Tuesday morning I woke up and it was my second worst day of this experience.

Sunday takes the cake of course but whew Tuesday was NOT MY FRIEND.

I was MISERABLE. I felt so so so so so sick. I don’t take medicine very much so when I do it really affects me. I could barely function. 

I got the kids to Mrs. Charlotte’s b/c my regular dr had told me to come back to see them that day. I washed my face super good and took a pic:

At the dr they prescribed me Zofran to help with my issues from all the meds. Y’all.

I had to take it b/c I was SO bad off but omg I should NOT HAVE TAKEN THAT.

I was BEYOND out of it. As in everywhere I went I told people they had to write down everything they said b/c I knew I wouldn’t remember.

The dr visit they were concerned b/c it didn’t look a whole lot different from the day before.

The infection could spread to my eye and cause meningitis to set in or even cause me to go blind.

And the swollen jaw line was going DOWN my neck which was also concerning.

So they wanted me to go to an ENT. Who isn’t in our network and was $230 just to look at me. Gahhhh.

The ENT agreed that we don’t wanna cut if we don’t HAVE to.

He said the amount of Cleocin I was taking was WAY BEYOND the amount that ANY human should consume.

He lowered that to the 300 mg 3 times a day instead of 4.

He told me he’d get me more steroid if I needed it but that he was confident by Friday I’d be looking good enough for our family pics Saturday (of course we have family pics scheduled with this haha).

He said he was optimistic that it may even be completely gone by Friday but to stick with all the meds and it should be gone when I finish them up.

He said when I finish the 300 mg ones to take the ones from urgent care until they are gone if I need to in order to clear it up. (and yes I made him write all of this down…I’m not kidding y’all. I couldn’t even fill out the paperwork to sign in)

On top of lowering the meds the ENT also wanted to add an additional medicine.

SEVERAL years ago my tongue swelled up pretty big from taking medicine with sulfa in it so I have just always said I’m allergic.

He said sulfa drugs would be the best to fight this thing and he wanted to try it out.

I said go for it. I mean the reactions I’d be likely to have were a rash or swollen tongue and at that point in the game what difference did that make?!?!

I just wanted to fight the infection to the best of my abilities!

I dropped off all the meds and went to the plastic surgeon again b/c SHE wanted to look at it one more time.

She also agreed the meds would help and that it’d probably take longer than the ENT said it would for them to fully dissipate.

I still had time to kill before my meds were ready so I went to Target to get more yogurt and since I didn’t have a stitch of makeup on I also went into ULTA and had them match my skin for some new makeup. BAHAHA.

I mean I can’t believe I did both of those things. HOT MESS LIFE. I ZERO percent should have been DRIVING let alone going into stores. I’m sure people were freaked out.

I had this craving for strawberry milk and cookies. Bought em. Ate like 3 and then I think I put them at Mrs. Charlotte’s house when I got the kids!?

When I went to get the kids I was SO out of it. Somehow I made my iPod “shuffle all” and so all these random old school songs were blaring.

It was hilarious listening to “no diggity” and “bawitaba” while driving solo. I’m pretty sure I went a good 10 under the speed limit the whole way!

Tuesday was my last terrible day. I learned only to take Zofran AT NIGHT and the steroids kicked in and I felt SO MUCH ENERGY.

I woke up at 4:30 AM Wednesday morning and cleaned and organized. It was awesome!

I got a good rhythm down for my meds, worked out every night, drank a ton of water, and ate yogurt at every med time. 

Wednesday 

The swelling got better and better but the actual SPOTS didn’t seem to be improving a lot.

They are ROCK HARD. No puss or fluid feeling. No head or scab or bleeding or anything like that.

Just HARD SPOTS on my face. Not painful, just freaky really! It’s hard to get a good pic of them but I tried on Thursday:

Yesterday I def could tell the swelling BIG TIME is pretty much gone!

The spots themselves remained the same and it DOES make me nervous about potentially having to surgically remove them?

I just don’t know how they will suddenly disappear?!?! Right?!?!

I am just gonna try to be patient. Finish out the meds. Reevaluate and if either/both are still there then I will take the urgent care meds until they are done.

THEN I will go see someone again if it’s still not gone?! Can I just thank the LORD for makeup!?!?!

You can see the eye pretty good here and how the jaw becomes so square back near my ear!

It’s not my normal style to request prayers like I did on Sunday. I usually feel awkward about that kind of thing.

But Satan has REALLY been on the attack regarding this adoption situation.

I mean I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I made the big, exciting social media announcement on Friday and that’s the same day all of this face mess started!

I knew I NEEDED the help of some strong prayer warriors to get Satan off of us!

Thank YOU for lifting us up throughout the adoption process and for the boost of prayers this week. I felt them all! 

This morning I woke up feeling good AND I could feel that the bite areas ARE getting smaller! Now we can go enjoy our week (and pics) and hopefully put this all behind us!

Update: I had a FACE GATE ROUND 2 and learned it was actually MRSA. You can read about that experience here!