Mutilation update
Jun. 8th, 2009 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rikibethI'm cleared to go back to work. Derek says come in Wednesday. Yay!
The worst part of the follow-up today was the long soaking needed to get the special clotting dressing to come off. "I wish they wouldn't use that stuff," the nurse said. She had me soak it in saline and peroxide, which was surprisingly non-painful. Soak for a while, tease up the edges with tweezers, trim it with curved pointy scissors until she hit the spot where I winced, soak again, lather, rinse, repeat, for about an hour.
No more giant gauze mess on my hand. Bacitracin, fingertip bandage, secure it with a normal Band-aid. She gave me a few packets of Bacitracin and a handful of fingertip bandages to take home. Also a clever little plastic splint to keep me from knocking the "lacerated and avulsed" fingertip against anything and maybe making it bleed again, or giving myself a nasty jolt even if it didn't. Glove it and I'm good to go.
I have another follow-up on Thursday, I guess to make sure that it isn't getting infected.
She says it'll be about three months before the nail looks normal again. I do believe I'll make lace gloves my fashion statement for the summer.
Oh, and I guess I was in more pain than I realized on Friday morning; the nurse commented that my BP at triage had been something like 165/130! It was back down to its usual 110/60 this morning.
The tetanus shot injection site has a gaudy, purple-and-yellow bruise about 2"x3" on it. They were duly impressed.
I'm going to give the slicer a good solid minute to stop spinning before I ever try to take the slices out from under it again.
The worst part of the follow-up today was the long soaking needed to get the special clotting dressing to come off. "I wish they wouldn't use that stuff," the nurse said. She had me soak it in saline and peroxide, which was surprisingly non-painful. Soak for a while, tease up the edges with tweezers, trim it with curved pointy scissors until she hit the spot where I winced, soak again, lather, rinse, repeat, for about an hour.
No more giant gauze mess on my hand. Bacitracin, fingertip bandage, secure it with a normal Band-aid. She gave me a few packets of Bacitracin and a handful of fingertip bandages to take home. Also a clever little plastic splint to keep me from knocking the "lacerated and avulsed" fingertip against anything and maybe making it bleed again, or giving myself a nasty jolt even if it didn't. Glove it and I'm good to go.
I have another follow-up on Thursday, I guess to make sure that it isn't getting infected.
She says it'll be about three months before the nail looks normal again. I do believe I'll make lace gloves my fashion statement for the summer.
Oh, and I guess I was in more pain than I realized on Friday morning; the nurse commented that my BP at triage had been something like 165/130! It was back down to its usual 110/60 this morning.
The tetanus shot injection site has a gaudy, purple-and-yellow bruise about 2"x3" on it. They were duly impressed.
I'm going to give the slicer a good solid minute to stop spinning before I ever try to take the slices out from under it again.
