18 August 2021
Last night I found myself cutting a fingernail-sized SurePrep wipe in half to conserve our last two, stretching them out to two days instead of one and hoping Ben would bring some Friday. Nuts to that, I said today.
I texted both Vic the LVN and Ben the RN (who has to recertify Joyce's home treatment this week) that we were out of the damn things. Not to mention Mepilex, the last of which I used this morning, shedding a tear.
There's nothing they can do about the Mepilex, I knew. But Ben generously offered to come by today to drop off a few SurePreps.
We looked all over for SurePreps yesterday. CVS, Walgreens, nothing. You have to order them online. Not available in stores.
SurePrep is an interesting product. It's isopropyl alcohol to clean the skin with a polymer to protect the skin from the adhesive used in bandages like Mepilex. You can feel it sealing your bare fingers if you try cutting one in half.
For someone like Joyce who needs her very large bandages changed twice a day, they preserve the skin the bandages adhere to. So they're more important than they might seem.
And Ben got that. He was at the door at 4 p.m. with a handful of them.
An hour later Byram's nondescript delivery truck arrived with 10 Mepilex pads, an emergency delivery until the 120 we usually order could be approved (late yesterday for delivery tomorrow, apparently).
So I didn't have to cut SurePreps in half or devise a Plan B with drape to seal the wound without Mepilex pads. That was just me being obsessive. The system works fine. Just in time inventory, etc.
Sure. Right.
I can't wait until next week when we have to reorder to abdominal pads.
℘
At dinner Joyce updated me on her appointments. On Friday she'll have a chat with Dr. Tong for the first time in a while.
I wondered if it wasn't a video conference.
She thought it was at the clinic. But we'll confirm because last time we tried this, someone had it confused. We showed up at the clinic for a video conference.
There's really no reason to go to the clinic. Joyce has a debridement next week anyway.
But since the subject had come up, I pointed out that Dr. Tong was probably not going to limit the discussion to surgery (which after all is, uh, cut and dried). I think, I said quietly, she's going to bring up the Wound VAC.
Meaning that after the surgery, Dr. Tong will want to close the wound with the Wound VAC rather than wet-to-dry dressings. To promote faster healing.
Joyce blew up. No way. And it went downhill from there.
"Just a heads up," I said, reaching for my wine glass. But, frankly, there is not enough wine in the world.