11 November 2021
Very dispiriting week here at the field hospital. We were doing the Santyl dry-to-dry dressings Dr. Tong had ordered, scratching by with supplies, on the expectation that we'd only have to get through Thursday night.
Uh, no.
Today Jennifer the Physician's Assistant called to tell us, yes, we're scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon and will have to get a rapid Covid test today after a video conference with the anesthesiologist. And after the drive-through test, we should drop by the clinic for the pre-surgery swabs and energy drink.
We got all that down on paper and then fielded the calls and emails setting up the 1 p.m. video call, the 1:50 p.m. Covid test at French hospital and the 2:15 visit to the clinic.
Except Jennifer called back shortly after to tell us that, due to the impending Kaiser pharmacists' strike, all elective surgeries were being canceled. Including Joyce's.
She promised to call Durable Medical Equipment to order supplies for the dressing changes, including Kerlix, abdominal pads and large sacrum pads (that even home healthcare can't afford to supply). She said she'd get back to us if there were any hiccups. But we didn't hear from her.
I let our three home healthcare nurses know the score.
Tomorrow Sequoia will be here late to do a dressing change. She said she had some large pads, so she may be a life saver. It's hard to believe Byram will deliver anything before Monday at the earliest.
We could have gone back to the Wound VAC dressings because Apria never picked up the machine and we do have those supplies. But Joyce absolutely refused to consider it after I suggested it to Jennifer on the speaker phone.
At 2:30 this morning her dressing leaked (we were trying to get through the night with it), proving the 4x5 sacrum pads are just too small to cover the wound with enough margin to prevent leakage.
I waited until this afternoon to launder the bed sheets though. And wouldn't you know it but the dryer started rattling again. It must be out of warranty, I thought.
I have a secure connection on the vent but it was wiggling loose with condensation on the floor. I moved the vent around as it ran but couldn't find the sweet spot until I stood up and pressed on the top. That quieted it, making me suspect the top is loose enough to shake the back enough to rattle the vent off.
So I tightened the bolts and it was silent as a ghost for the last nine minutes of the run.
Time to conjure something up for dinner that involves spirits for the dispirited.