My leg – the right one again – has taken a turn for the very much worse, and the pain is enormous, as is the swelling. Clearly, then, I’m going to have to elevate my leg at some point.
I can’t use anything that’s going to put pressure on the affected parts (pretty much anywhere between knee and heel, effectively), so finally,
Not done a leg report for a long time – there’s probably a limited market for gross photos!
Things, though, are going very bad, very fast – I have two bleeding and infected ulcers in my leg that are getting worse by the day. The bleeding, I’m told, is “a good sign”. Colour me unconvinced. The bleeding is likely to provide an avenue for infection to enter my system, resulting in septicaemia – in what possible way is that good?
This is what greeted me when I took my sock off.
My big problem, with the nurses coming only twice a week now, is that the dressings weld themselves to the lesions so tightly that, when they are removed, the healing process is massively disrupted. Even soaking in warm water isn’t a total solution (no pun intended).
However, when I bought my own supply of Aquacel Ag dressings, I finally got Continue reading
I was poking about in the photos on my Galaxy S3, couldn’t find the one I wanted, but I stumbled upon this that I’d totally forgotten about (warning, gross! – don’t Continue reading
No, not my right leg, that’s still progressing nicely – and reasonably pain-free.
This is my healed left leg, and now it’s taken against me. Last week the nurses’ manager agreed with me that the tubular bandage should be left off as it was doing nothing useful.
Wrong.
What it was doing – keeping Continue reading
Despite dire prognostications from the staff nurse (I use that term as the post seems to be analogous to that in a hospital – I don’t know if it’s the correct title for a community nurse), that my lesions will never heal without compression, the evidence – in a mere four days – speaks for itself. The swelling continues to diminish, too – my right foot is now almost as small as my left. A few more days, and with appropriate wound protection, and socks, I might just be able to wear boots again.
This is the last pic, from last Thursday:- Continue reading
Definitely not resolutions – as I said earlier, I don’t do those – more along the lines of ambitions. These are things that need to be done if I’m to get my life back on track now my legs are healing – Lymphoedema is incurable, but the leaks have gone and the remaining lesions have almost completely healed, though I have to accept that either or both might be back at some point – first among them being get out more, before Cabin Fever sets in! If, indeed, it hasn’t already.
Before I can do that, I need to Continue reading
Again, much improved. The smallest of the lesions has now scabbed over, and the two larger ones are, again, appreciably less deep. Continue reading
And it wasn’t all good news.
The remaining lesions are, apparently, baby ulcers (personally, not convinced – we’ll see), for which the only cure is allegedly compression. Bearing in mind the biggest “ulcer” is 1.6cm across at its widest point (and that, frankly, is a very generous measurement as all of them cover an area less than 5cm square!), and the rest are much smaller, compression means wrapping my leg, tightly and painfully, in four layers of unyielding bandage and padding from toes to groin.
Given that for Continue reading
By which I mean that, of late, they have become utterly useless. Much of the time they don’t even turn up at all.
(CNS – aka District Nurses.)
I had the usual phone conversation with a nurse this morning:-
Nurse: I’ll be with you in an hour – that OK?
Me: No. Because the nurse I was expecting yesterday didn’t turn up, I changed my dressing myself last night, so I don’t need anyone today. I will need someone tomorrow, though, if you’d pass that along.
Nurse: OK
Thirty seconds later she’s back on the phone. Continue reading
Ron's Rants... 