~ wound care ~

As you read in the most recent installment of this fine recounting of the wonders of my life, I felt that I was in a glorious place last Friday. After a week of being inert in front of my computer, pumping out brilliance in the form of some research papers, I had come upon the glorious day of Friday which was the due date of my final research paper and the beginning of spring break. To bask in this glory, Josh and I went on a mountain bike ride. We rode Shane's Loop, which is a very mild ride that I have ridden countless times. I found this ride particularly difficult on that Friday and I attribute this to my having remained inert for the duration of the week. Which is telling of my out-of-shapedness considering the easiness of the Loop.

Anyhoo, I don't feel much like recounting every single dingle wingle inconsequential detail of the ride, which is unusual for me...do I feel okay?, so I'll skip ahead to the point of impact. Which was the ground and me having failed to engage in the proper landing of a jump, resulting in my flying over my handlebars and landing with an audible 'thud.' I say 'audible' because Josh was riding a decent distance in front of me and heard the 'thud' that I produced upon impact. I have surmised that I was flying through the air for several seconds because I was able to asertain in mid flight specifically how this was going to ruin my weekend.

I'll spare you some of the less sexy details of my crash, like how the impact dislodged an incredible amount of mucus from my nasal passageway, and allow you to think that the crash was totally rad, when, in fact, it was not...totally rad. The raddest part of the crash, however, was how I strategically dispersed the impact to three rather largish areas of my person, rather than focusing the impact at one locus. So, rather than having one part of my person being severely injured (say, if I had stuck out my hand to break my fall and instead broke my wrist), I have three parts having been mildly injured. Basically, the left side of my person is lame, specifically my left knee, my left thigh/hip region, and my left forearm sustained the brunt of the impact. As I recall, that which made me feel the worst about the crash was when I saw the horrid tear that the crash had caused in my brand new awesome green cycling jacket. Just thinking of that two inch tear in the sleeve of the jacket brings tears to my eyes. So sad, it was such a beautiful jacket.

Anyway, here's a gross picture of my bloody knee
post impact with the ground. You might have been surprised, as was I, by the sheer amount of swelling that occured to this knee over the weekend. You might also be surprised at how great the pain was on this knee, pain which has made every movement of my person sheer agony. The pain and inability to move and bear weight on the knee had become so great by Sunday night that I had resolved to go to the free employee health clinic at my place of employment. Monday when I awoke, the knee was remarkably better. The swelling was gone and the knee had returned to a state of sorta-nimbleness. It still hurt like the dickens, but was noticably better.

So, I walked into work and all of my coworkers, many of whom have university degrees on how to take care of the human body, could not contain themselves over the state of my wounds. My supervisor literally saw my knee and then escorted me across the street to get a tetnus shot. She had to hold my hand throughout this process because the thought of being impaled by a needle made my knees weaken and my stomach churn. She even held my hand when it became incredibly clammy and cold sweaty as I saw the ginormous needle about to inject me with poison. I thought I would faint.

Later that day, one of the experts on the human body had a telephone conversation with the local wound care specialist and also utilized the library services to research wound care in sports medicine. This brought her to recommend that I apply a specific kind of dressing (Tegaderm) to my knee. She surmised that this dressing would only be available at specialty medical supply shops and might be rather expensive. I made a few phone calls and discovered that I could buy the dressing at cost through my employer, and so I procured three of them for two dollars. The experts on the human body with whom I work said that Tegaderm would be just the ticket to allow my wound to breath, would not stick to the wound, and would allow for proper drainage.

For those who are like me and are not experts on the human body, here is my experience. First, this dressing, to my unexpert eye, resembles celophane in its clear and smoothness. It is obvious that it is not made out of plastic, unlike celophane, and is more pliable, stretchy, and almost rubbery. I am confident that this is not going to stick to my wound...one of the experts on the human body and I had something of an argument about medical supplies purporting to not stick to wounds. I was a vehement disbeliever and did not want to apply any sort of dressing to my wound. But I now believe. Secondly, the drainage has been an interesting experience for me. The dressing seems a little porous and when I brush my hand against its surface, I sense a slight moistness that may be due to my wound goo evaporating and forming condensation on the outer side of the dressing. At the same time, the dressing forms these pockets in which the wound goo accumulates, and these pools of wound goo push themselves into rives and leak out from the underside of the dressing. The dressing is translucent and it is possible to watch all of the disgusting healing powers of my person. This is not to say that I have wound goo dripping down my leg, but it does accumulate in crusty wound goo patches. I am now in the habit of having a tissue with me to periodically wipe away the crusty wound goo. Here is a gross photo of my knee with the dressing on it. If you examine it closely, you can see how it resembles celophane, the pools of wound goo that accumulate on the inside of the dressing, and the crusty wound goo that drains onto my leg. As disgusting as this looks to you or I, according to the experts on the human body with whom I work, my wounds are healing nicely.

Posted by jennifer at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)