Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Sort of a White Horse
29 August 2020
Rough night. The little Wound VAC was beeping all night. "Low Pressure Alert!" it would complain. Or "Blockage Alert!"
I'd changed the canister earlier in the day. So the new one wasn't full. The tubing from the canister to the plastic connector wasn't kinked. And it wasn't kinked from the plastic connector to the sponge.
When I saw the fluid moving toward the canister again I'd turn out the lights and go back to bed. It would wait patiently for me before it would start beeping again.
I retrieved Joyce's ear plugs for her. And buried my head under the pillow. The nurse would be here in a few hours.
And right at nine, I saw Tyler Smart's white car park near the house sort of like a white horse.
He took a look at the Wound VAC, which was pumping merrily away, of course. But after a couple of minutes he got the beep, too.
He also noticed the line pressure was not as high as it should be. But he confirmed there were no kinks in the tubing and the canister was attached and functioning.
Time to call the surgeon.
As he waited for the long Covid-19 warning that followed the 911 recommendation, he took Joyce's vital signs. Still vital.
He talked to an advice nurse on speaker phone, persuading her to contact the surgeon on duty. A Dr. McCloskey came on the line. She asked him what was up.
The only thing he noticed, he said after explaining the situation, was that the lily pad1 holding the tube on the sponge was attached to the edge of the sponge rather than directly on it. He thought that it might be sucking skin toward the tube, closing it off.
How about changing the lily pad tubing?
Well, Nurse Smart needed an order for that because home nursing was not permitted to change the dressing. That still requires a surgeon for the sedation, which he explained to Dr. McCloskey.
But if the Wound VAC isn't doing its job now, we aren't risking anything, Dr. McCloskey pointed out. And Nurse Smart was game. He just needed a verbal order from her.
AS he pulled the lily pad off, he noticed the sponge was being pulled away too, so he stopped and reported the problem to the surgeon. "Can you cut it off?" she suggested (just like a surgeon).
He did.
Then he attached the new one, plugged the tube into the plastic connector of the tube coming from the Wound VAC and we had suction! Without a beep!
Great relief all around.
As he drove away in his white steed a few minutes later, we wondered, "Who was that masked man?"