Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Packing Lists
4 November 2023
Kristine the LVN took a vacation last month for two weeks, traveling to Sicily and the Philippines, so Francis the LVN stepped in to do the dressing changes. He did just fine but for some reason none of the supply orders he placed were delivered.
When Kristine returned, she got Joyce's supplies delivered again. There's quite a list her company provides through Kaiser at no cost to Joyce.
They include saline solution to clean the wound, various skin prep pads to protect the skin from the adhesive, Coloplast ointment for the raw edges of the skin, Q-Tips, gloves, Dakin's Solution for the wet part of the wet-to-dry dressing, Kerlix gauze rolls for the Dakin's Solution, abdominal dressing pads to absorb fluids from the would, large Mepilex pads to cover the wound and Ace bandages to prevent swelling.
The rules of the ordering game, as we've mentioned before, are to order no more than $50 of supplies at a time and precisely three items. Francis probably violated both rules. But it's hard to tell. Kristine is always amused by what's come in because it only vaguely resembles what she asked for.
So given that we didn't have any deliveries for two weeks in October, we thought we'd photograph the packing lists for the deliveries we did get. What you see in the picture is deliveries for just two weeks.
Some of those deliveries were just one roll of Kerlix in its own little box, probably a back order. Others were three items in various quantities (to make the $50 requirement).
Three or four times a week, we get another delivery. It's a nuisance to constantly have to unpack the supplies and dispose of the shipping materials so often rather than just getting one delivery a week.
But at least we aren't getting any more Q-Tips.
℘
DR. TONG HAS CONTINUED her debridements every three or four weeks with the usual rescheduling, which Joyce doesn't always tell me about so Kristine and I sometimes get caught off guard.
As we were yesterday when I had to text Kristine to skip us when Joyce insisted she had an 11 a.m. debridement I knew nothing about. I confirmed it on the Kaiser Web site before texting Kristine.
Usually I talk to Nate from the clinic to schedule the debridements because it's my schedule we have to work around. But when things get canceled or rescheduled, I'm not always in the loop.
Anyway, Dr. Tong remains pleased with Joyce's progress. Friday she noted the wound is smaller. When Kristine returned from vacation, she had measured it one centimeter narrower but the same length.
By cutting away the yellow slough every few weeks, the pink tissue has a better chance to grow, promoting the healing. The wet-to-dry dressing is a kind of mechanical debridement, pulling a bit of the yellow slough off each time it's removed. But the slough outruns it. So the debridement catches up.
Next year, Dr. Tong says, for the surgery. When next year is still to be determined.