Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Dressing Change at Home
3 September 2020
I called Apria again in the morning to track the canisters and other supplies. Trish sent an email to the local facility urging them to get them here. She noted the file had a four-hour delivery request yesterday too.
Resupplied. The little table has everything needed to dress the wound and the two columns of boxes watched over by Bee Well have more of it.
Yeah, and that's all that ever happens, I pointed out.
Tyler the homecare nurse arrived at 10 after Joyce had taken an Oxycodone and Tylenol to deal with the pain of the dressing change at home. But the pump had been off all night so he was concerned there would be a lot of fluid in the wound and under those circumstances the risk of infection was high.
He got on the phone and, after jumping through a few hoops, confirmed Joyce's appointment this afternoon at the hospital.
When I left I emailed Dr. Tong so she knew we'd be coming. Which is when FedEx pulled up with the delivery.
This was no doubt facilitated by sister Carol's venting (at my request) in an email earlier in the day:
Maybe if I vent from here about the canisters, they'll get delivered. Really- what's the big deal? An order goes to them and gets delivered. Not brain surgery. What's the problem? Do your job. Even in Covid, especially in Covid, this needs to happen!! (How's that?)
She also mentioned her mail carrier has been suffering the new management just like my mother's nurse's husband.
She said some of her colleagues were coming in on their own time to sort packages because they knew people on their route weren't even getting their meds on time! One day the mail truck didn't even deliver. She called it despicable and, yes, it is real.
I called Tyler to let him know the supplies were here after I installed a new canister and turned on the pump. He thought it was safer to do it at the hospital, though. So I emailed Dr. Tong again.
Just before noon she called to say she had talked to the director of the home nursing service and asked for the nurse to do it here after all. And a few minutes later he called to say he'd come by about 1 p.m. to do it.
And that's what happened.
Joyce took an Ativan just before he arrived so she was pain free and calm through the procedure talking to us as Tyler removed the old dressing and foam pads and cut new foam to fit the wound before covering it in draping plastic. He cut a small hole in the draping and taped the lily pad and tubing over it.
Then he connected the tubing to the pump and [drum roll] the foam compressed into the wound and we had a seal.
He was surprised how clean and dry the wound is, especially after the pump had been off so long.
It was the first time he'd seen it. And the first time for me too. All that radiated skin is gone. And so is the dark skin around the radiated skin. Dr. Tong only left healthy tissue.
And she went quite deep. Down to the muscle, which I could see lying in the wound. May take an Ativan myself next time.
But it helps to know what we're dealing with. I remember Dr. Tong saying what a long haul it's going to be and seeing the wound you appreciate what she means.
Doing the sponge replacement at home, though, was a big step on that long haul.