|| I KIND OF HAD A MELTDOWN TODAY ... ||
Today I had to go to the wound clinic.
Basically, it is exactly what it sounds like -- a clinic that deals exclusively with the healing of stubborn wounds. I have two wounds, one on the back of each leg, that developed in July. If you'll forgive me, I'm just exhausted and I don't really want to get into why this happened. Suffice it to say, I have a medical condition that can cause wounds, and, no, it's not diabetes.
I do have pictures of the wounds, but you all would probably never stop vomiting and that would be cruel of me to knowingly make you hurl.
When I was in the hospital for the bowel perforation, one of the professionals who attended to me was a specialist wound care nurse, so I began getting treatment for the wounds on my legs, and they got so much better. And they've continued to get better and better as I've been home. As I was packing to leave the hospital, the nurse said, "Oh, take whatever you want -- we just end up throwing leftover treatment items away anyway." So I grabbed the wound care kit, which, if I may say so myself, was a rather smart move. Anyway, I was referred to the wound care clinic upon my discharge from inpatient and my first appointment was today.
First of all, the wait was long -- I waited over an hour to be taken back to the clinical area, and then another 30 minutes there before the nurse finally took a look at me. She found a few spots where the wound was very dark, but dried off, and the nurse (who was very nice, don't get me wrong) looked at me and said Squick! (Highlight to read): said, "We'll just numb those areas up with lidocaine and the doctor with peel those (THE SCABS, which were both large and deep) off. And the thought of having rather large scabs peeled away from my skin was just too much.
Maybe it was just the culmination of everything that's happened over the past three weeks, I don't know. But I just started crying, and I don't mean a sniffle and a tear that I could dab at with a tissue, but full on crying :(( The nurse was like O_O and my mother was trying to pat my back and tell me everything was going to be okay. I was so squicked and scared by their proposed course of treatment that at first I refused to give consent. Long story short, I ultimately did give consent, because one of the wounds in particular was very dark in color, and that's the one they really wanted to look at. So they packed the areas with lidocaine-soaked gauze and I sat there for another 20 minutes or so, and then the doctor came in. I was still crying, although not as hard as before ... I don't know what it was. I just was having a really hard time getting it together.
The doctor asked me why I was crying, and I told him I was scared and afraid it was going to hurt, and the doctor says: "Well, that's really no reason to cry, is it?" That really didn't help and it made me distrust the doctor right off the bat. Because the procedure they were going to do wasn't really the issue, although I was definitely scared; it was the trigger for all these feelings that had built up over the course of three weeks to come tumbling out. So the doctor made me feel like an asshat for being scared and for having an emotional reaction to all the traumatic stuff that has happened to me since August 16th.
I let them do the procedure, which was not comfortable, and then the nurse wrapped both my legs in four layers of bandages and told me I needed to keep them on a full week, until my appointment next Monday. I was like ... "How am I going to shower?" I was advised to buy two of these cast/bandage covers for bathing, so I ordered them today and paid the extra delivery fee to get them delivered tomorrow. I'm allergic to latex and adhesives, and while the nurse assured me there was no latex in the bandages ... OMG I am itching like I've been stung by 1000 bees!
I'm supposed to see the dentist today, but I may call and ask to reschedule. DH is out of town, so obviously can't drive me. My mom isn't available to drive me tomorrow. My plan was to call a cab, as the dentist is very close, but now that I have these bandages on I can't put my shoes on, even my ballet flats. The nurse managed to pull on some of those hospital socks over my bandages -- you know, the kind that have the rubber grips on the bottom. I don't think it would be appropriate or sanitary to appear in the dentist's office wearing raggedy hospital socks and nothing else. I'm not heartbroken to postpone the dentist for another week or two, but I do hate calling to cancel appointments at the last minute.
I just feel bad that the doctor made me feel like a jerk for crying. I wasn't doing it on purpose and there was a reason I was crying -- I was scared and all the stressors of the past three weeks picked that particular moment to pour into my emotional state.
OMG I AM ITCHING SO BAD!!!! >.<
Basically, it is exactly what it sounds like -- a clinic that deals exclusively with the healing of stubborn wounds. I have two wounds, one on the back of each leg, that developed in July. If you'll forgive me, I'm just exhausted and I don't really want to get into why this happened. Suffice it to say, I have a medical condition that can cause wounds, and, no, it's not diabetes.
I do have pictures of the wounds, but you all would probably never stop vomiting and that would be cruel of me to knowingly make you hurl.
When I was in the hospital for the bowel perforation, one of the professionals who attended to me was a specialist wound care nurse, so I began getting treatment for the wounds on my legs, and they got so much better. And they've continued to get better and better as I've been home. As I was packing to leave the hospital, the nurse said, "Oh, take whatever you want -- we just end up throwing leftover treatment items away anyway." So I grabbed the wound care kit, which, if I may say so myself, was a rather smart move. Anyway, I was referred to the wound care clinic upon my discharge from inpatient and my first appointment was today.
First of all, the wait was long -- I waited over an hour to be taken back to the clinical area, and then another 30 minutes there before the nurse finally took a look at me. She found a few spots where the wound was very dark, but dried off, and the nurse (who was very nice, don't get me wrong) looked at me and said Squick! (Highlight to read): said, "We'll just numb those areas up with lidocaine and the doctor with peel those (THE SCABS, which were both large and deep) off. And the thought of having rather large scabs peeled away from my skin was just too much.
Maybe it was just the culmination of everything that's happened over the past three weeks, I don't know. But I just started crying, and I don't mean a sniffle and a tear that I could dab at with a tissue, but full on crying :(( The nurse was like O_O and my mother was trying to pat my back and tell me everything was going to be okay. I was so squicked and scared by their proposed course of treatment that at first I refused to give consent. Long story short, I ultimately did give consent, because one of the wounds in particular was very dark in color, and that's the one they really wanted to look at. So they packed the areas with lidocaine-soaked gauze and I sat there for another 20 minutes or so, and then the doctor came in. I was still crying, although not as hard as before ... I don't know what it was. I just was having a really hard time getting it together.
The doctor asked me why I was crying, and I told him I was scared and afraid it was going to hurt, and the doctor says: "Well, that's really no reason to cry, is it?" That really didn't help and it made me distrust the doctor right off the bat. Because the procedure they were going to do wasn't really the issue, although I was definitely scared; it was the trigger for all these feelings that had built up over the course of three weeks to come tumbling out. So the doctor made me feel like an asshat for being scared and for having an emotional reaction to all the traumatic stuff that has happened to me since August 16th.
I let them do the procedure, which was not comfortable, and then the nurse wrapped both my legs in four layers of bandages and told me I needed to keep them on a full week, until my appointment next Monday. I was like ... "How am I going to shower?" I was advised to buy two of these cast/bandage covers for bathing, so I ordered them today and paid the extra delivery fee to get them delivered tomorrow. I'm allergic to latex and adhesives, and while the nurse assured me there was no latex in the bandages ... OMG I am itching like I've been stung by 1000 bees!
I'm supposed to see the dentist today, but I may call and ask to reschedule. DH is out of town, so obviously can't drive me. My mom isn't available to drive me tomorrow. My plan was to call a cab, as the dentist is very close, but now that I have these bandages on I can't put my shoes on, even my ballet flats. The nurse managed to pull on some of those hospital socks over my bandages -- you know, the kind that have the rubber grips on the bottom. I don't think it would be appropriate or sanitary to appear in the dentist's office wearing raggedy hospital socks and nothing else. I'm not heartbroken to postpone the dentist for another week or two, but I do hate calling to cancel appointments at the last minute.
I just feel bad that the doctor made me feel like a jerk for crying. I wasn't doing it on purpose and there was a reason I was crying -- I was scared and all the stressors of the past three weeks picked that particular moment to pour into my emotional state.
OMG I AM ITCHING SO BAD!!!! >.<