I’ve been wondering… what is the allowed amount you can deduct for charitable contributions of clothing and household goods?
I don’t bother with garage sales. I usually just give my children’s old clothing away to friends. This year I gave much to Goodwill. So how much can I deduct? $2 per pair of jeans? $5 per pair? There has to be a list somewhere, right?
Time to Google.
Ah-Ha! The Salvation Army to the rescue!
I saw the surgeon again today. My armpit still hurts like @$#%, but HE thought it was progressing well. He said it looked “nice and grainy”, and apparently that is a good thing.
He still isn’t putting me on antibiotics. He says all that would do for me would be to give me another infection elsewhere. (Boys, you can ask your women to explain that one if you need a translation.) So far they haven’t been able to grow anything (bacteria) on the sample in pathology, so we really don’t have an answer as to what caused it, except that cat scratch fever wouldn’t have grown anything. Maybe that’s further evidence for that theory.
So, have gave me another Vicodin prescription and says he’ll see me next Monday.
God bless Vicodin. Amen.
So I have been following doctor’s orders and sticking Q-tips in my nasty open wound under my armpit to prevent the tissue from adhering. Apparently I haven’t been sticking them in far enough… until today. I worked in front of the mirror today (I had been doing it in the shower) and could actually see what I was doing. Gross.
While part of it was still about 2 inches deep, the rest was sealing up. So I stuck the Q-tip in and jackpot! The puss literally shot out of my armpit, hit the mirror and ran down. Gross, gross, gross! I screamed, not so much in pain, but in horror! Gross, gross, grosssssssss! I have to wiggle my toes while typing this as the memory is so nasty I can’t stand it. Wiggling my toes helps me cope. No, I don’t know why.
I had a little surgery on my arm Monday. The surgeon thought it was an infected or necrotic lymph node, as did my family doctor and the radiologist. Once he was able to see it from it inside, it turns out I had an large abscess. He speculated that it was from cat scratch fever. And all this time I thought that was just a song!
He made a 2 inch incision, which he hasn’t closed and won’t ever close. The abscess was about 2 inches in and about 2 inches around. Noticing a theme here? Anyway, it has to drain, so no stitching it up. The worst part is when the skin begins to adhere, as it is prone to do, I have to separate it so it can continue to drain. The prescribed method of choice is by sticking a peroxide soaked Q-tip in the incision as far as I can get it to go. Today I was able to stick it in about 1 inch, so I take that to mean that about 1 inch of the depth of the wound has healed. It has to heal from the inside out, so this is good news? I think?
My armpit stinks to high heaven! No deodorant, no soap, and a weeping, pussy wound, all wrapped up in a maxi pad. As sterile absorbent pads cost at $2 each, he suggested I purcahse maxi pads instead. I have a super long Kotex taped under my arm! Ugh!!
