December 17, 2008

MY DRY DRESSING


My Dry Dressing.
Unfortunately I'm not referring to the dressing that is shoved up the butt of a turkey and generally cooked to a golden perfection.
The misfortune of that type of dressing being dry can be easily resolved with a generous helping of gravy.

My Dry Dressing is a major pain in the butt and a 2 week blitz of antibiotic gravy has not resolved it.



My Dry Dressing has left me feeling pretty bummed. It means that
I am bandaged from elbow to armpit. It completely cramps my style and makes long sleeved coziness a distant shivering memory. It is also high maintenance, requiring my home care nurse to come in every 2 days to change it. Bottom line, my dry dressing means that my PICC Line infection has not resolved.




The major bummer is that last week we thought it was finally resolving. Last Monday I was finally able to get back into an inclusive dressing after spending 2 weeks on mega doses of oral clindamyacin and enduring 3 weeks stuck in the dreaded dry dressing. I was ecstatic to be back in my regular inclusive dressing. The inclusive dressing is far easier to live with - it is less cumbersome, only requires a dressing change every 7 days and I am able to somewhat awkwardly shower with it - the dry dressing means I'm relegated to the bath tub. Rub a dub dub, I'm not partiularily fond of the tub.

My Inclusive Dressing

Yesterday, I awoke to discover fluid was leaking out of the insertion site again. A quick call to my nurse had her out to our house within half an hour.
And me back in a dry dressing shortly thereafter.

hello. I am once again bandaged from elbow to armpit.
And back on another round of oral clindamyacin to try and reign in this infection.
I spoke with Dr H this morning, he said that if things are not resolved in a week than I will have to have my PICC Line removed and have surgery to have a port-a-cath imbedded in my chest.




sigh.
never a dull moment.
at least I can be grateful my dry dressing doesn't make my butt look big.

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