19 March 2021
Yesterday Dr. Tong debrided the wound again, completing the removal of yellow slough she started earlier this month. There is pink tissue now that should grow with an assist from Vashe, a solution that promotes growth and cannot be found anywhere.
We are on our last pint of the stuff.
When Joyce left the hospital on the 15th, we took home five pints of the stuff. And that's lasted a month of two-a-day dressing changes.
Plan B is to use saline solution. With, perhaps, one dressing change using Dakin's solution, the diluted bleach that just cleans the wound without promoting healing.
We'll be back at the clinic on Monday for another debridement.
Not a lot of healing is going on even with the Vashe, though. The debridement makes things look peachy but it's the same gaping wound.
I had a chat with Dr. Tong after she finished debriding the wound. Stay the course, she said, and hold off on the Dakin's Solution. She gave us more abdominal pads and said she ordered more supplies but not Vashe. Ask the home healthcare nurse for that, she suggested.
We have. They don't have it. The Kaiser pharmacy doesn't have it. You can get it on Amazon but it costs more than inkjet ink (which itself costs more than champagne).
So we logged into Byram's site before Ben the RN came today. This is the place the supplies come from at no charge to Joyce. She didn't have an account herself. Dr. Tong did the ordering. But we used the chat feature to talk to Keisha and get Joyce enrolled with the existing account number.
We could see the previous orders and the list of products with the dry supplies. But no Vashe. So I asked Keisha if they had Vashe.
Nope.
When Ben changed the dressing this morning, he promised to ask his supervisor if they could get it but he told us not to hold our breath. He's never seen it in the supply room.
We'll be back at the clinic on Monday for another debridement. So I'll ask Dr. Tong once more for Vashe. With feeling.