I had surgery for muconous ovarian cancer in October. At site if incision, there was a boil that was leaking white fluid with a bit of blood. In my follow up visit with my cancer doctor, she said to keep a warm wet towel on it and it should drain and keep it covered. I did all that but the clear fluid changed to a yellow pus like fluid and I told the doctor. She said if it doesn t drain, then come back in to lance it. Will I lanced it at home with a sterilized pin and keep draining it until it stopped each day. It eventually stopped. Since it stopped draining, I started breaking out in hives. Nothing had changed in my eating habits, meds, etc but after putting up with hives - every 3 days or so they would appear - I went to the doctor a month ago. Told to take benadryl and if still getting hives after 1 month, she wanted me to do lab tests. I told her I thought that I had a staph infection from things I had seen and read on the internet. Well now my blood tests came back and they show that my WBC is low, 3.7 and my PMN Absolute is low 1.9. Haven t yet talked to my doctor as I just had the lab done in Friday, but I want to know if a staph infection can lower my WBC and the PMN Absolute. I am wondering also if I should be checked for a staph infection - doctor had said that they could not do it by checking blood, but with a nose swab. If the infection has spread into my blood, how can it be detected by a nose swab.