Last Wednesday evening, the 16th, Jack had somehow scrapped a good 2” x 3” top layer of skin off the top of his left hand. The skin was folder over like the page of a book. It was awful looking. There was a small amount of bleeding along one side. Of course he said it was okay, no need to have it cleaned up and looked at. I taped it up.
Thursday morning I said we should go out to breakfast and then stop at the intermediate care/med station. No, not necessary. He calls me at work that afternoon and agreed to go after work. We get there and it’s a two hour wait. He said no thanks, that he’d call his doctor on Friday and get a same day appointment. Sure.
Friday, his doctor is booked, BUT Jack knows he shouldn’t wait any longer as it was starting to hurt worse and constant. Hurray! That is, hurray that he agreed, not hurray it hurts. The med station is part of the facility both our doctors are in. The doctors rotate covering days in the med station and if they have a same day cancellation, they fill it with a med station patient. Guess who had a same day cancellation? His doctor!
Dr Dandouis said it was getting infected and good he had not waited any longer. He cleaned it up, gave us some non-stick sterile pads, and a prescription for an antibiotic. His instructions were to take the bandage off every day, leave the wound exposed to air for at least an hour, and then cover with new sterile pad with Neosporin on it. He also wanted to see him again in a week.
Last night we both thought it looked the best it had been. Up to then Jack was getting concerned that it wasn’t healing. It just looked so raw. With being older and a diabetic healing can be longer than normal and problematic.
This morning he woke up and said the hand hurt, thinking maybe he slept on it or did something to it at night. By mid morning it was still hurting. After lunch he took then bandage off to do his daily airing and asked me to look at it because it looked different. Oh did it ever. There was a 2” long, ½” wide light-greeny-yellowish colored glob along the edge of a portion of the original top layer skin the doc had placed back over where it should be. It’s infected. He didn’t think so. I walked away thinking if he doesn’t change his mind in 10 minutes, I’m calling my sister. He agreed to another trip.
Today is Thanksgiving. I was half way through putting together the pumpkin pie. I called to make sure they were open, turned off the oven, and we’re off. I went in with Jack this time. Doc said he didn’t think it was infected. He took some gauze and started dabbing it. He said if it was an infection it would be liquid and stick to the gauze. This did not. What we were seeing wasn’t puss, it was granulation of the wound, the wound healing. I’m wrinkling my nose, oh yuck; I really don’t handle this type of stuff well at all. I told him I can’t touch that even with gauze. He laughed and said he could tell. Jack chuckles and said I’m not the nurse in the family. At least I didn’t get light headed and have to sit down.
Good and bad news. It wasn’t infected, which was good. But, I was wrong about his needing to go to the med station and that probably is bad. My fear is he will be stubborn about going because I’ve been wrong. Jack? Stubborn? BUT, he wants to keep tomorrow’s appointment and that too is good.
