Saturday, February 26, 2005

...But First, A Song

There's a hole in my back,
dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in my back,
Dear Liza, a hole.

With what should I mend it,
Dear Henry, dear Henry,
With what should I mend it,
Dear Henry, with what?

With expensive silver stuff,
Dear Liza, dear Liza,
With expensive silver stuff,
Dear Liza, that's what.

There really is a hole in my back, a rather deep one, too. There's currently stuff stuffed in it that costs $150 a sheet in order to try to get it to heal. The hole in my back is worth more than I am. Maybe it's the pain medicine, but I find that really funny.

So, here is the continuing saga of Sheryl's Abscess (coming soon to daytime TV near you). I went to the doctor of Monday afternoon to follow up. She was appalled. The emergency room nurse never gave me a wound care sheet, so I had no idea what I should have been doing over the weekend. Sunday night, the incision started to ooze something fierce. I was afraid to take the original guaze dressing off because I was afraid of the packing the doctor put in. It was drenched with pus.

When my doctor took the dressing off and the packing out, it just gushed pus. She said that they first of all prescribed an antibiotic that was nowhere near strong enough. Second, since I didn't know that I could change the dressing, the pus sitting on my skin caused a secondary cellulitus, which can be serious. Then when I told her that the ER nurse told me to take the packing out in the shower on Monday morning, she was livid (glad I didn't listen - being a chicken pays off sometimes). She got me some samples of a serious, serious antibiotic, and sent me down to a surgeon's office to have it looked at and repacked. I went and got packed by the surgeon's nurses every day last week.

Well, my manager offered to pack it this weekend, and she looked at it Friday to see what she was dealing with. I told her how they were packing it (cleaning the exterior with betadine, swabbing the interior with peroxide, packing it with a 2 by 2 soaked in betadine). She didn't like the look of the hole, and she didn't like how they were packing it, so she called one of our wound care consultants. She told her to pack it with a strip of the expensive stuff (it has silver, which is an antimicrobial agent, enbedded in it), so that's what she's doing.

There's still a lot of hard area around the hole, which isn't a good thing, but I suppose it's healing. At least I hope so.

_______

Oh, yeah. I'm officially not a temp anymore. Yay! And my manager isn't that bad. I guess she just doesn't like being lied to, which is what L did (she told her she had to have surgery because one of her implants was displaced).

I'll write more tomorrow. Really. Honest

1 comment:

Chevy Rose said...

Well, congrads, glad you posted the good news about being on full time now. Glad the abscess is on the mend. Suggestion, drink Red Clover tea (from health food store), it really works and you can even apply the warm tea bag to the wound to sped healing.