I'm home now and have recovered from the symposium. My colleagues and I think it went fairly well and we have some direction, I think, about how to move forward.
But as promised, here is what happened with the Wound Care nurse on Tuesday. Beware, it might get slightly graphic.
The nurse, Luella, has me using a dressing that has silver in it. It looks like gauze, but slightly gray. Apparently, silver is anti-microbial. I put this gauze over the open skin wounds and then cover it with another dressing that also has adhesive on it. This then goes over the gauze. Then, I use this spray that she called "skin wax" (I think) which creates a barrier on top of the skin. The tape goes over this and the wax keeps the adhesive from sticking too much to the skin and protects the skin from breaking out.
Advantages to these dressings are that they should only have to be changed once/day and also they contain the smell. I'd noticed the area smelling toward the end of the day as the dressing was saturated. I asked Luella about the smell and she thought that it was probably the cancer in the skin. Thank goodness the dressing contains it!
Unfortunately, there seems to be even more weeping - the whole dressing is leaking some by morning - I change it every day when I shower, but a couple of hours before I wake up, I find wetness on my shirt. Great!
It's hard to tell, but it does seem that it's healing under this regimen. Luella said that they (whoever "they" are) now believe that wounds heal more quickly in a moist environment - you don't want it to dry out. Well, it's certainly been moist!
But it is icky to pull off this really saturated dressing. The silver gauze gets darker and very wet and it sometimes sticks to the fatty tissue that is forming where that scab fell off 2+months ago.
Luella said that the area wasn't infected and that most of it was superficial. So, that was good news.
Since there's silver, she did say that I should make sure the silver is washed off before radiation as the metal might make things worse in the skin. Sigh . . .
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wound Care visit
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3 comments:
Sounds like a major pain Dee. I'm sorry you're having to cope with that and I hope that the silver and the wound care will help.
Glad your symposium went well. I'm sending a bunch of good vibes your way.
I've appreciated your visits to my blog. I always enjoy your comments.
I hope you can have a nice restful weekend.
Gee frigging whiz. I do hope this works. I wish I could offer something useful like "Eat X! It makes wounds heal!" or something. I know this pales in comparison but at various points in my life, I have had severe psoriasis on my scalp. It just made me feel like my body was -- if not rebelling -- certainly not cooperating. I will send healing thoughts your way. nyc jeanne
Hi Carver and Jeanne,
Thank you both, very much! It's a royal pain in the ass, but it is one reason why I decided to go ahead with the radiation -the rad onc felt that maybe it was the cancer keeping the whole area from healing. So, perhaps radiation will kill the cancer and the wound will heal.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm one big experiment!
Jeanne, psorisasis is a pain in the ass, too, so I figure it's on the same level as the open wound. I'm sorry to hear you've had problems with it in the past - hopefully not in the future?
Carver, I always enjoy visiting your blog - your photos are just so beautiful and peaceful - it brings a smile to my face!
Again, you two, I appreciate you sending healing vibes my way! I certainly imagined those vibes washing away the cancer today!
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