Final update on my right arm:
The doctor at the "collaborative emergency centre" -- which every rural hospial in NS is now called but I have yet to figure out how it works any better other than the emergency won't ever be closed "due to a lack of doctor coverage" -- took one look at my arm and called a dermatologist at a hospital in Moncton.
Well, that's getting somewhere. She prescribed a topical steroid cream which, after only two applications, is doing the trick.
I'm not sure if Dr. No. 1 got the diagnosis wrong -- two nurses before him said it was shingles, too -- but I saw three different doctors so there was no continuity in terms of seeing the progression of this virus/bacterial infection/dermatitis on my arm. Maybe the dermatologist can explain it. Although Tuesday afternoon, my arm will be healed right up -- no idea if it will scar or not -- I'm still keeping the appointment because I'd like to know for sure what it was and what it became. Was it shingles? Or was it contact dermatitis from the start?
When I went to the drug store with my third prescription in two weeks, I said, "It's me again. Now they think it's -- " I was starting to feel like a patient of Dr. House.
I'm always saying, "I got a scratch while working in the garden this afternoon. If I end up with some horrible outbreak on my arm, it'll be necrotizing fascitis caused by that scratch." Seriously. That's all it can take to bring on n.f. But the flesh-eating disease didn't even occur to me when this whole thing started. What's wrong with me?