26 October 2020
We were surprised to get a text from Tyler the RN this morning telling us he would be doing the dressing change today. It turns out he had to re-certify Joyce for continued in-home care. Every two months.
I guess you could say she just completed a lap. With quite a few more laps to go.
He did say that while the wound is smaller it isn't much smaller. Healing is happening but it's happening slowly.
I asked what the red bumps on the muscle were. Salwa the LVN wasn't sure but she was concerned and suggested we ask Dr. Tong.
But Tyler said it was new tissue growing. The red bumps are new muscle and the yellow tissue is new fat. There's a lot of fat that has to grow in and I can see that it is slowly growing in.
Joyce hasn't been able to see any of this, of course.
He wasn't convinced the Lidocaine was much use but he did put it on. It doesn't last long, numbing the area while he works on it and a little after. But she takes Oxycodone before anyway.
Just tell Dr. Tong you refuse the Lidocaine if you decide not to buy any more, he said.
And while he was here, I asked about the lab report results from the tissue culture Dr. Tong took when she debrided the wound.
He wasn't entirely sure but suspected it referred to normal bacteria that is found on skin in general. If there had been anything to worry about, there would have been a longer report, he said.
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WE CONTINUED OUR QUEST for a new bathroom rug today but we switched strategies.
Our first thought was to follow the sales associate's recommendation to order the gray rug in the right size from Bed, Bath & Beyond for curb-side pickup.
Then we thought all that would do would deliver the wrong size rug to us at the curb. They'd just snatch what was (incorrectly) stocked on the shelf like we did without confirming the size.
What about Target? we thought.
They had a 20x34-inch gray nylon rug for $9. Three of them at the Geary store.
So after Tyler left, Joyce and I drove over there, found the Bath section and found a gray rug.
It wasn't the same rug, though. It was a $15 20x34-inch pigeon gray nylon rug.
I whipped out my phone and looked up the one I wanted. I showed that to the checkout clerk.
"That's a different rug," he pointed out. "Do you want that one?"
Well, yeah, that was the idea but we couldn't find it.
"Would you take this one?" he tried.
"Sure," we accommodated him. "At this price." I pointed to the phone.
He agreed to sell it to us for $9. And thus we satisfied our quest to acquire a gray rug for the realm.
That's the thing with Target, though. I've only made about three purchases there this year but every one was priced lower on the Web site. I always ask an associate to honor the Web price and they always do (even punching a special code in at self-checkout once).
But you have to play that game.