What's wrong with me? I know it's all in my mind. I should be able to tunnel through this mental wall that springs up in front of me when I see an open wound. Logically, I should be able to look without my head becoming a helium-filled latex orb while my legs remain cemented to the floor with lead.
It must be that I know it's on a person and it's not natural. Kind of like some of those pictures in National Geographic. The guy pulling a loaded wagon using hooks stuck in his back, or the lady who looks like a duck-billed platypus with the metal plate in her lip. I can't look at those either. Don't even get me started on House.
Maybe it's because of what it represents. Pain. I hate to see someone hurting. Especially when there's such an obvious physical manifestation of the pain. When Mel has a migraine, my eyes don't roll up into my skull and I don't collapse, jerking with spasms. Probably because I can't see the head ache.
Maybe it's a skin thing. What is it about skin? I like skin. Skin is good. But for some reason, when skin is split open, it triggers a switch that opens the dam holding back this reservoir of chunks waiting on the other side.
Having shared that, I'm happy to say Melisa has been going to the Wound Care Center at Memorial for the past week. Last Tuesday she saw Dr. Shulman who suggested we hold off filling the tissue expanders until the wounds have healed for a couple of weeks. She sent Mel to the Wound Care Center, claiming they have all the good gizmos and voo-doo to speed up the healing process.
It's been a relief for Mel (and me) not to be burdened with changing the wound dressings twice a day. Now she's supposed to have the dressings changed a few times a week by the PT at the hospital. In a couple of weeks we'll see how she's healing, and probably start expansion again.
Other than dealing with open wounds, Melisa has been doing fantastic. She started back to work last Tuesday. They've been so good to her there. I'm amazed at how supportive, understanding and giving they are. In my opinion she couldn't work for a better place.
They've been keeping her busy in the office, making sure she doesn't over do it. Telling her to take it slow and heal. It shows how much they value her. She's not just a number. Large corporations are typically selfish and make decisions based SOLELY on the bottom line. I understand you need to make a profit to stay in business. But I also understand, like Memorial, that if you treat your people right they'll stay. That's a lot cheaper in the long run than having a high turnover rate.
When we saw Dr. S last week, she prescribed some more Percocet for Mel. She'd been having trouble sleeping just using over the counter pain killers. The Percocet did the trick. She's actually to the point now where she's made it through the last two nights without prescription pain meds. Either the tunnel's getting shorter, or the light at the end is brighter. Regardless, we can now see the light there and we're moving towards it. Slowly.
I'll keep you posted.
2 comments:
Your buddy Kem has just opened you up to mass notice. Get ready for tons of un-expected attention.
You guys are in the middle of a incredibly painful ordeal and I would not wish it on anyone. Reading your story has been very touching...thanks for sharing it. I hope that the healing continues and that as you deal with the lingering frustration of recovering from such a major operation, you continue to keep your faith and your sense of humor. Sometimes, that's all you've got, but sometimes it's just enough.
God's peace and blessing on you and your family.
Josh and I send you all our love! (And we're newlyweds, so there's a whole lotta love...)
Thanks for being such a wonderful, supportive husband to my beloved sister, Scott. We are all blessed to have you.
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