26 August 2023
I have to confess to a little fatigue settling in. Running over to the skilled nursing facility for a couple of a hours every day, figuring out what to do for dinner, shopping, keeping two houses maintained, well, it's taking its toll.
So I've been a bit remiss in reporting that nothing has been happening.
At the end of July, Joyce had an appointment with Dr. Tong at the clinic for a debridement. It was the first in a while and she needed it.
Dr. Tong wants to do a monthly debridement now, stepping up the pace a bit, so on Wednesday, Joyce had another. Everything looks good, Dr. Tong said. The wound is healing. Good job.
By stripping the yellow slough from the surface of the wound, Dr. Tong frees the red cells below it to grow. Otherwise the growth is suppressed.
And there is some noticeable improvement. I've been posting images to the wound album now and then to show the progress.
But it's funny. When Dana the RN or Kristine the LVN actually measure the wound, it comes out to about the same as it's always been 7.5 by 3.5 inches with a depth of about an inch. But when I lay the Kerlix in that hole, I notice the shape of the white gauze has narrowed and contracted in length a bit as well.
So the wound is slowly healing. Very slowly.
Joyce even got out of the house for a dinner with the Mundstocks when Alice's brother James visited this month. It was the first time we saw the newly-weds Rachel and Adam. And Paul and Jeannette were there too.
At this point, it takes Kristine and I just a few minutes to do the dressing change. And once-a-month debridements are a small price to pay for wound maintenance. It helps enormously to have the handicapped placard to avoid the garage fees and parking meters on the street.
So as far as Joyce is concerned everything is going well. Which is something to celebrate.