My daughter's head is its own bio-dome.

My daughter's head is its own bio-dome.

Gross, right?  You have no idea and I don't have the heart to make you all urpy by posting the crime-scene-like photos of my baby girl's noggin.  Merry f*cking Christmas.

Once upon a time (but really over the Thanksgiving holiday) something odd popped up on Sprinkles' head.  "Maybe she bumped her head?" we thought and then thought no more on it.  The day after Thanksgiving we noticed it had grown exponentially and was no longer just a bump of flesh... it was a giant, puss-encrusted scab the size of a quarter.  Why does it smell?!?!?!  (We were trapped visiting family in the backwoods at the time so the closest pediatrician was Bubba and his magical jar of white lightin' down the holler a-ways.)  Next day we get home and immediately go see the doctor.  "It must be a nasty case ringworm." he says and gives us a foul tasting concoction that we must shove down her throat once a day for 6 F*CKING WEEKS!!!!  

Okay... there's a fungus amongus... I can handle that.  If you live in the South, then you already know, but for those of you visiting from places that are less wet/warm/fertile (heh), here in Tennessee we get to deal with a myriad of odd and disgusting infections/insects.  Ringworm does rather well here and is a common occurrence, especially in small children... as are chiggers, poison ivy, and intestinal parasites.  (insert big eyeroll)  And no... it's not because we don't wear shoes or cotton ta skoolin'... it's because we play in the creeks naked and don't drink enough moonshine.  :)

Anyhoo...  So every night for the next few days we beg/plead/trick/wrangle poor Sprinks to get the medicine go down.  (Spoon full of sugar my ass...)  It seems to be working.  Sprinks is happy because she gets a cookie every time we attack dose her.  Sass is happy because he isn't the one who has to take it.  Hubbs and I are happy because we think we know what it is and we have a cure.  All seems to be going well...

Until...  (and we all have our "Untils", don't we?)  

A couple of days ago, over the course of no more than 8 hours, we noticed that it had blown up to the size of a silver dollar; turned a very angry shade of red; was weeping copious amounts of a dubiously colored fluid; and smelled of death, corruption, and infection.  (I must note that, through all of this, Sprinkles seemed largely unconcerned by the contagion eating away at the back of her head.  So... at least there is that.)  Yikes!  Back to the doctor!  Run, run, RUN!

Diagnosis is.... (drum roll please).... Staphylococcus!  W... T...F...?!?!?  My baby has a STAPH infection on.  her.  head.  Yeah... just take a moment if you need it.  I did.  

Better?

Yeah... me neither.

Ya'll... I was raised in a lab (literally.  My mom finished her PhD in Microbiology when I was 16 and my sisters and I hung out with her her and the other graduate students all the time.  And what do graduate students talk about with small children?  Why, Fractals and Genome Sequencing!  So yeah... literally raised in a lab.) so I have a decent basic idea of what's wiggling around out there.  This freaks me out.  Now, I know staph is everywhere and all you need is an open wound and a suppressed immune system (and sometime not even that) and Tag!  You're It! but seriously?!?!?!  This is no bueno....

The good news is the infection is responding to the new medication wonderfully.  It already looks ten time better...which should help all the parents of her classmates feel a little better themselves.  I will say that it is NOT contagious, but it looks like it should be.  It looks like something that should dissolve you from the inside out in a bad SyFy Channel movie that is supposed to take place in a jungle but is actually filmed somewhere in Northern CA...

The bad news is that it is F*CKING STAPH...  Yeah....  I need another moment...