17 April 2021
The week went by in such a blur we thought it was merely a morning and we still had most of it ahead of us. And this was the week Joyce didn't have a single appointment at the Plastic Surgery Clinic.
It all started with a phone call from Mom on Sunday. Her neighbor Eugenia had called to tell her that a vent under Mom's front stairs was broken open and it looked like an animal had made a home there. Her daughter had noticed it when she visited that day.
I had, one December a while ago, noticed a skunk slip through the same sort of vent at Sally's house on the other side, around 9 p.m. If the vent had rusted out, Mom's new housemate could be a skunk.
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SO MONDAY I WENT OVER THERE to investigate. I saw the dirty paw marks on the white wall leading to the broken vent. But when I went inside and opened the door to the closet-like space under the stairs, it was vacant.
Nothing to eat, no reason to stay.
I drove over to Home Depot, which did not have anything that would fit from the outside. And the inside was not framed conveniently to fit a garage door vent, which might have been nice. I looked for some sort of patterned metal sheet to nail over the opening without finding anything.
Then I found some decorative aluminum panels and bought one which I cut down to size and popped in from the outside. Perfect. And it looks rather more elegant than the mesh that had been there 60 years.
I cut another piece and put it on Sally's vent, too. If anything were in there, it could push it out. But when I came by Wednesday, both were still firmly in place.
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LATE THE NIGHT BEFORE (Tuesday if you're scoring at home), I remembered I'd promised my General Practitioner to get some blood tests done this week. I'd expected to be at the clinic twice this week when I made the promise and thought I could just pop over while Dr. Tong was debriding the wound.
I logged on to make a morning appointment and saw only Friday available. You have to make an appointment at the lab during the pandemic. And I wanted a morning appointment because these are fasting tests and I didn't want to go a whole morning without a cappuccino (aka breakfast). I have certain non-negotiable methods of getting through the day.
So there is was: 10:45 Friday morning.
On Wednesday, coming home from Mom's as relieved as she was that there was not going to be a skunk in the house, I realized Friday morning is when Ben the RN was coming to do Joyce's wound.
I hadn't seen him in a while and thought I should go over the latest with him. So I texted him to tell him about my predicament and asked if we could do it early Friday or Thursday. He liked Thursday.
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THE "LATEST" YOU ALREADY KNOW. Dr. Tong thinks there's little to debride, we're skipping this week at the clinic and she ordered Tylenol with Codeine for those home Lidocaine sessions.
There's always more to the story, though.
When Byram told us we were stuck with the 150 small Mediplex pads, I decided to experiment using more than two on the wound. Three seemed to work. So we wouldn't have to order Mediplex bandages for a while (25 days, precisely).
But we were down to our last couple of abdominal pads.
There's always more to the story, though.
So early Thursday morning I went online to order from Byram and the site just froze. When I finally got the order page up and put in the abdominal pad order, it timed out. I used chat to report the problem. But the chatterer could not confirm the problem, suggesting I call the order in.
We were expecting Ben so I asked Joyce to call and order the abdominal pads. But she screamed and cried like I was putting Lidocaine on her wound. "I can't do it!" she said, over and over.
Patience is not one of my virtues, I reminded myself. Stay the course, stiff upper lip, etc. I encouraged her to make the call as steam invisibly escaped my ears. Let's admit it, I told myself, this isn't a walk in the park. Not for her. Not for me.
She used to call Apria to order supplies so calling Byram isn't asking too much. But she is struggling to get from A to B, watching TV all day and no longer taking walks. She says it's too cold and windy. She's only gone to the mailbox this week.
She did call but they wouldn't accept the order until April 28. As if we didn't really need them.
Ben came to the rescue, giving us a handful of small abdominal pads that still cover the wound. He said he'd have Salwa bring more on Monday. And Tuesday we have an appointment at the clinic where they are used to me begging for things.
We'll manage.
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FRIDAY MORNING ARRIVED before I knew it. I reminded myself to skip the cappuccino. I also had to remind Joyce to take two Tylenol (sans Codeine) before the dressing change. She doesn't remember. Ever.
I drove over to the lab parking on the street, which was more difficult than I expected because Friday is street cleaning day in the neighborhood so there are half the spaces there usually are.
I had a long walk to the lab. And a long wait after paying my $10 copay with Apple Pay.
Let's call it a moment.
Then Ja'Nay took three vials of blood for the tests and I was on my way with a tourniquet on my arm holding a wad of cotton over the gaping wound. (Well, not really. I've got small veins, she said, but I'm an easy stick. "Drink some water next time," she said so the blood flows out faster.)
When late last night I still hadn't received the results, I started my daily backup and planned to finally, uh, rest in peace.
Then an email arrived with a link to the first results. I had to peek.
Spectacular!
More came in this morning if not quite all of them. Still spectacular. Never better, really, since I've started tracking them in 2007. Every one of them in the normal range and some quite good.
Joyce was relieved to learn she wasn't killing me.