Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Wet-to-Dry Supplies
22 February 2021
I am writing this on Monday evening after making a chopped blue cheese salad, boneless pork chops and spaghetti in a homemade marinara sauce for dinner. Earlier today Joyce had her dressing changed by Cat the Physician's Assistant at the Plastic Surgery Clinic.
As Mondays go, it was a nice one. Sunny with temperatures in the mid-60s for once. I found a parking place on the sunny side of Broderick, saving us $8. It was just a block away from the medical building so we had a nice stroll, too.
We were just a few minutes early for the 11:30 appointment and Cat came for Joyce immediately at 11:30. By noon we were out of there.
Cat wanted to tell me that I and my assistants providing in-home nursing are doing a good job with the wound care. But they've decided to continue it until mid-March to keep mechanically debriding the tissue before returning to the Wound VAC.
That's about two more weeks that Dr. Tong originally thought. A month, total.
Which brings up the issue of supplies.* There are quite a few of them. Before I left the house, I did inventory so I was able to tell Cat what we had.
Here's the basic list of what we use for each dressing change:
- Two Adaptic meshes to make it easier to remove the wet layer
- A long strip of Kerlix gauze soaked in Vashe for the wet layer
- Abdominal pads for the dry layer (alternately Kerlix)
- Sterile strips to substitute for the second abdominal pad (in short supply)
- Large sacrum adhesive pads to hold the sandwich in (alternately 6x6 adhesive pads)
- Drape to cover everything
In addition to all that, there's a white stretchy mesh to prevent the adhesives from rolling up and sticking to clothing and large gloves to keep me from infecting the wound while I'm in there. I need two pairs each time, one for removing the old dressing and a fresh one to apply the new dressing.
Cat found enough supplies to get me started and promised to order the rest, including more Vashe and those abdominal pads* I have completely run out of. I have some alternative pads that will soak things up (the dressing gets soaked in just a few hours) and the gauze Kerlix will do in a pinch, too.
We do have plenty of Adaptic (and the alternative Curad strips), Vashe, Kerlix, non-adhesive pads and adhesive sacrum pads. And we have enough drape to hold it in if we run out of the adhesive sacrum pads.
We'll improvise, I told Cat as we left. She laughed. But I wasn't kidding.