Fifteenth

Okay, so if I have to do it, you have to read about it. Cuz this gives me the willies and I need to pass them around (even though this would be kind of cool if I was helping someone else with it).

My wound where my tumor broke the skin is now about an inch in diameter. Basically a big open sore, the surface looks kind of like cauliflower, but white and red and purple. There's about half an inch of skin all around it that's puffy and sort of purply-blue.

I went to the wound clinic at LD on monday, where they cleaned it and taught me how to take care of it. The taking care of it is what is freaking me out a little bit. It's draining and trying to heal, but if it heals over before it's done draining, it'll just bust open again or get infected. I have to wash it with soap and water, which isn't a big deal. The ewwww factor comes next. The purply-blue skin around the sore is not really attached to the tissue underneath and that's where the draining fluids gather. So I have to stick a small catheter (attached to a syringe with saline) under that skin and work it around to flush everything out. Then, the wound has to be kept open so it will continue to drain. I get to pack it with a ribbon of gauze that's half an inch wide by about four inches long. I stick the end of the ribbon on a qtip and work it into the line between the sore and the puffy skin, and keep going until most of the gauze has disappeared into this oozing hole in my belly. I cover it with more gauze and some tape to protect it for the next time, about eighteen hours later. Then I shudder for about an hour remembering the feeling of the ribbon being packed in.

Stupid crappy cancer.

I was suprised that there was an entire clinic devoted to caring for wounds. My past experience has been, you have a booboo that heals or if it needs stitches or gets infected you just go to your doctor, or it takes a little longer to heal. I guess there are a lot of chronic wounds out there. Some are cancer related, some are due to a compromised immune system where the body simply doesn't have the resources to heal, some come up in conditions like diabetes and the body's circulation isn't good enough to allow the wound to heal.

The doc I saw didn't think my wound was too serious. She just said the biggest thing to watch for was infection, but the signs would be quick and obvious. I see her again in ten days, during which time the sore will probably continue draining as much as now. Ewww again. Surgery is not a good option. For one thing, I'd have to stop chemo treatments for about four months. For another, the tumor is just below my big scar from the last surgery, so between the scar tissue and the poor circulation and drainage because of my bad lymph nodes there, the surgery site might never heal and would be prone to infection.

I'm mostly just pissed off about it though. I can't take a soak in the bathtub with this thing on my gut. /sigh That used to be the highlight of my day, sinking up to my ears in all that warm water. Oh well, you do what you gotta do, right? I'll have to find a new hobby I guess lol.

Cheers