21 October 2021
It's been a difficult week. Joyce has been in a lot of pain but can't remember when she last took Tylenol or Codeine so you just throw up your hands.
She's stopped going for walks and sits in front of the TV all day. She barely eats.
And she developed some sort of skin problem around the wound. Last Friday it was inflamed and by Monday is was blistered. It's better now but later today we'll be going back to the Plastic Surgery Clinic to have it evaluated.
They only plan to do wet-to-dry dressings when the take down the foam dressing, Cat the Physician's Assistant told me yesterday afternoon when she called to discuss the skin problem.
I'd been at my mother's almost all afternoon. Walgreens botched her Tylenol with Codeine prescription (which she needs to get through the night) and botched dealing with their botch. In the end I had to call her doctor's emergency number to get him to authorize the prescription again.
It's funnier than that, actually. Funny enough to be a late night comedy sketch.
Joyce's Wound VAC kept beeping.
She got an email from Walgreens this morning saying her prescription was ready for pickup at the local Walgreens. So she asked me to pick it up on the way over.
But when I went there, the clerk said it had been delivered to a different Walgreens. Where, I asked, ready to go there. "In Arizona," he said.
I wish I could report I laughed.
By the time I got home it was dinner time, which was when Cat called. But that's not all that happened.
Joyce's Wound VAC kept beeping. She ignores the beep, which you can hear all over the neighborhood. I plead with her to look at the screen to see what the problem is.
Lately it's been that the canister is full and has to be replaced. No problem. But this time is was a leak alarm. Problem.
She laid down on the bed and I took a look. You can't see a leak. You have to listen for it. Put your ear to the wound. And feel for it, running a couple of fingers over the drape to see if you can locate the leak.
It was coming from the center of the foam, which already had about three layers of drape on it. But that's also where the foam bridge to the lily pad on the front of her thigh begins. I tried reinforcing that. Better.
But a while later, we had another leak alarm. And because there's a leak, pressure can't be sustained and the pump runs continuously. And furiously.
I relocated where the bridge meets the foam and taped that. Better, but again we had a leak alarm a little while later.
So I replaced the lily pad at the other end of the bridge. Not any different.
This took a few hours and by the time it was over, we were ready for bed. So we turned off the VAC, which was constantly beeping, and went to sleep. A quiet undisturbed sleep, the first time all week.
It had been a week of sleeping for an hour and trying to get back to sleep for two. Joyce would thrash in pain and I would have to camp on the couch. But for once all was serene.
Until she woke up at 3 a.m. and found the bed was soaked. The drape had become detached and the wound was leaking onto the bed.
I tossed everything into the washer after I put a wet-to-dry dressing on her and got her back to bed on the visitor's futon in her room.
The last load is drying now as I write this. And I am hoping the wet-to-dry dressing lasts until the afternoon when we go back to the clinic.
Because, you know, we don't have many wet-to-dry supplies left.