Saturday, October 2, 2010
on a positive note
While I was at the dermatologist yesterday, the plumbers came and fixed our kitchen sink. It drains with gusto now!! I can actually wash my hands, rinse out the coffeepot or even dump un-drunk water down the sink now and watch it actually GO DOWN. WOOOOOOO HOOOOO. I know, most people don't get excited about a working sink, but I have been living with a non-functional sink for 7 years. After doing dishes, the water would literally take at least 2 hours to drain completely. Corey had done his best to fix it but we finally gave in to the fact that no matter how much snaking, plunging or venting we did, there was something seriously wrong with the pipes underground. It was time to call in the professionals, and the results are well worth whatever the cost is. The bill will arrive next week...I'm sure that Corey and I will both have to pick up our jaws off the floor when we open it, but we'll cross that bridge then.
I learned something interesting this week....
Taking care of a sutured wound is easier said than done. I had to have rather large mole removed from the middle of my back a couple of weeks ago, due to the fact that the mole was in "pre-cancer" phase, so the dermatologist told me to take care of it now before it turned into a melanoma. Ok, said I, thinking safe is better than sorry. The process used to take the mole off was excision, meaning that they literally cut it out of my back with a scalpel, going through all the layers of skin, in a wide oval shape around it. They sutured it shut with internal dissovable stitches and external stitches that had to come out. I signed off on a piece of paper that acknowledged I would have a scar. Little did I know what sort of scar I would have!
I walked around with my frankenstein stitches for a couple of weeks, then went back to have them taken out. I followed instructions on the suture care for the most part, except I let my OCD about germs take over for a few days and applied bacitracin to them when I shouldn't have. Don't know if that caused later problems or not, but it probably didn't help.
The nurse had a heck of a time getting my stitches out, and had to call in another nurse to help her dig the nasty scab out of the stitches. Apparently I am thick skinned literally and figuratively, as both of them kept saying "I've never seen scabbing like this." Whatever, I was so happy to have someone yanking those stitches out and relieving the godawful itch that nothing else mattered at that moment. Once they got that all done, they slapped a couple of butterfly-style steri-strips on the booboo and told me to apply neosporin twice a day right over the steri strips. The steri strips were supposed to fall off in a few days; instead they fell off that night. I didn't pay any attention, thinking that all was well.
Wrong!! Over the course of the next day or so, the excision wound opened up and the internal sutures started to rupture, as the steri strips were no longer holding it together. I had no clue; I was just cleaning the area and applying neosporin as directed, without really looking at it. My mom made a snarly comment that she didn't like the way it looked and I blew it off. Then Milo asked to look at my frankenstein scar and when I showed it to him, he said "Ewwww." Normally Milo says "Cool!" about stuff like that, so I finally contorted myself in front of the mirror and saw that instead of a neat little slightly open linear booboo, I now had a gaping deep hole that was filled with yucky stuff. Ewww indeed.
Mild panic attack ensued. I'm all for battle scars and whatnot, but I'm not into having infected bullet holes in my body. I could literally stick my pinky into the hole. Blech. I was back at the dermatologist office first thing the next morning, saying "What is wrong with this nasty thing??" The dermatologist told me that the sutures ruptured, it was too late to stitch it back up and to stop moving around so much so the hole would have a chance to fill itself in. (Um, hello, I'm alive, therefore I move all the time) The gunky stuff was actually skin that was trying to grow and attach itself to the edges of the booboo. Now I have to apply special prescription ointment that is both an antibacterial and will help the scar fill itself in, for two weeks. Ugh. But that is better than developing MRSA!!
So here's what I learned from this experience, that I will pass unto you for future reference: if you have to have stuff cut off you, don't expect the healing to be all neat and pretty, especially if its on your back (or any area that has a lot of constantly changing tension in the skin). Resign yourself to having a ginormous battle scar that will be bigger and more ugly than the original problem!
I walked around with my frankenstein stitches for a couple of weeks, then went back to have them taken out. I followed instructions on the suture care for the most part, except I let my OCD about germs take over for a few days and applied bacitracin to them when I shouldn't have. Don't know if that caused later problems or not, but it probably didn't help.
The nurse had a heck of a time getting my stitches out, and had to call in another nurse to help her dig the nasty scab out of the stitches. Apparently I am thick skinned literally and figuratively, as both of them kept saying "I've never seen scabbing like this." Whatever, I was so happy to have someone yanking those stitches out and relieving the godawful itch that nothing else mattered at that moment. Once they got that all done, they slapped a couple of butterfly-style steri-strips on the booboo and told me to apply neosporin twice a day right over the steri strips. The steri strips were supposed to fall off in a few days; instead they fell off that night. I didn't pay any attention, thinking that all was well.
Wrong!! Over the course of the next day or so, the excision wound opened up and the internal sutures started to rupture, as the steri strips were no longer holding it together. I had no clue; I was just cleaning the area and applying neosporin as directed, without really looking at it. My mom made a snarly comment that she didn't like the way it looked and I blew it off. Then Milo asked to look at my frankenstein scar and when I showed it to him, he said "Ewwww." Normally Milo says "Cool!" about stuff like that, so I finally contorted myself in front of the mirror and saw that instead of a neat little slightly open linear booboo, I now had a gaping deep hole that was filled with yucky stuff. Ewww indeed.
Mild panic attack ensued. I'm all for battle scars and whatnot, but I'm not into having infected bullet holes in my body. I could literally stick my pinky into the hole. Blech. I was back at the dermatologist office first thing the next morning, saying "What is wrong with this nasty thing??" The dermatologist told me that the sutures ruptured, it was too late to stitch it back up and to stop moving around so much so the hole would have a chance to fill itself in. (Um, hello, I'm alive, therefore I move all the time) The gunky stuff was actually skin that was trying to grow and attach itself to the edges of the booboo. Now I have to apply special prescription ointment that is both an antibacterial and will help the scar fill itself in, for two weeks. Ugh. But that is better than developing MRSA!!
So here's what I learned from this experience, that I will pass unto you for future reference: if you have to have stuff cut off you, don't expect the healing to be all neat and pretty, especially if its on your back (or any area that has a lot of constantly changing tension in the skin). Resign yourself to having a ginormous battle scar that will be bigger and more ugly than the original problem!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)