31 March 2022
Everything happens on Wednesday was a saying of my father's. Wednesday was the day we put the weekly magazine to bed and, uncannily, it always seemed to be the day when the news we were covering came to a head.
We had quite a Wednesday today.
We had a 9:30 appointment with Dr. Tong and barely managed to get out of the house by 8:58, according to the car clock (which I consult frequently these days).
We hit all the lights, found a parking spot in the garage quickly and, somehow, made into the office with five minutes to spare.
Joyce had gone in already when Dr. Tong came out to tell me she doesn't have any black foam this time. I thought she stocked it because she had it last time. She has to bring it from the hospital.
Which meant they'd have to do a wet-to-dry dressing instead. Except they have no Mediplex pads, so it would be all gauze with paper tape. Very insecure and leaky, in short.
She goes back to take a look at the wound so she can recommend further hyperbaric treatments (and she does). And right away Alessandra, her assistant, comes to get me to talk about what to do.
Yes, she wants to surgically debride the wound but Friday afternoon (when I had tentatively arranged to switch the oxygen session to the morning) would be too soon probably. Especially since Joyce needs a Covid test to be admitted into the hospital.
Maybe next week, Dr. Tong thought, but she can't guarantee an afternoon. I point out that she'll miss a hyperbaric treatment if it's a morning surgery because they keep her overnight.
She thinks the antibiotics are the biggest help at the moment. It looks better than it did when she last saw it in the hospital, she says, particularly the muscle. It's a new antibiotic she'd never used before, she says.
But that course ends today and she'll need a new culture to have another course of antibiotics prescribed.
Meanwhile she and Alex put a makeshift wet-to-dry dressing on. I scratch my head a bit, wondering what we can do about that.
We have just enough time to swing by the house but not enough to repair the dressing. So I run in, get some supplies and leave half an hour before our 11 o'clock appointment, which is just enough time.
To make sure she isn't late, I drop her off in front before parking the car. That confuses her a little but she gets to the unit and is changing by the time I get there.
At the hyperbaric unit I explain the dressing problem to Kathy the LVN, who explains it to Jessica the RN when she finishes with a patient. I volunteer to do the repair in the Exam room and that's fine with her, although she did offer. Five minutes later, Dr. Mike is done.
I was worried that the porous dressing would come off or leak in the chamber under pressure. With the Mediplex and a fresh ADP pad, it won't leak or come off. So Joyce should be fine.
I brought tegaderm just in case Mediplex was forbidden (anything not cotton or remotely flammable is forbidden to prevent fires in the pure oxygen environment).
I discuss the surgery options with the nurses and they're flexible. I tell them I appreciate that and promise to let them know what's going on as soon as I do.
Kathy puts on The Tiger and the Snow for Joyce. She's never heard of Benigni or Tom Waits but Jessica knows Waits. I am being eclipsed culturally and it's painful.
I debated whether to call the temporary nurse filling in for Vic whose father died and is out today to come do the dressing this afternoon or do it myself after I go to my mother's and do the grocery shopping.
But we'll be home by 2 p.m. and if it takes the nurse an hour, I'll still get out of the house for my mother's an hour earlier than usual. So I text her and she agrees to come then.
A little while later Dr. Tong calls to ask when I'd like Joyce to have the surgery. Friday afternoon, I suggest again. So she goes to work on that.
By the time we get home (just five minutes before Katherine the LVN arrived), the phone is ringing. We don't have a time but the Friday surgery is apparently on. Diana wants to set up an appointment for the pre-surgery video chat Thursday at 8:40 a.m. and a follow-up visit at the clinic with Cat the Physician's Assistant on Good Friday.
"What about the Covid test?" I ask.
So she calls back a little later suggesting 9:10 a.m. on Thursday and neither of us catch the conflict with the video call at 8:40.
But later it occurs to me that we can leave the house at 8:30 and take the call on her iPhone. We'll see how that flies.
We'll be back at the house by the time Julie the Physical Therapist arrives for a 10 a.m. appointment.
It seems like this week everything happens on a Thursday too.