Going Commando

Sunday, February 21st — Last week I saw my primary care physician, Dr. Sanjeev Shah. Dr. Shah has been overseeing the oh-so-long-and-ongoing treatment of my leg wound, along with all the other stuff that needs overseeing in a septuagenarian body.

I told him I’d been trying an experiment the previous weekend to see if it made any visible difference in the rate of healing. Seems the wound has been stuck for a while at 4.5 cm length and 1.3 cm width. I’m patient, I can wait; but what annoys me is that the surrounding skin, which has been, in effect, under wraps for the better part of a year now, has become very sensitive. Little raw places keep popping up, or blisters; and Emily, my physical therapist,  has described the skin as “angry” or “macerated” by turns. I am really fed up with it all.

So my experiment was: GO COMMANDO. At least, let the leg do that (the thought of the aforementioned septuagenarian body Going Commando is a little bit horrible). What would happen if I didn’t put on skin barrier, and Alginate, and a foam dressing, and a gauze wrap-up, and a jersey footless sock, and finally the Velcro Circ-Aid? What would happen if I just washed it in the shower, as I do daily; and then put nothing at all on it for 24 hours? Just me and my nekkid leg, in loose jeans, and subsequently in my flannel p.j. pants? What would happen?

I thought it might be good for the skin, and maybe even good for the wound, to be able to breathe a little bit.

Dr. Shah quite surprised me by his reaction. He said: “I’m going to propose a really ROGUE idea here. Keep the leg unbandaged the whole weekend; you can even get a fan and put the leg in the breeze. Just be really, really careful not to bump it on anything. I mean REALLY CAREFUL!”

Well, yeah, of course I’m being careful! Really careful! Now that I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, am I going to screw it up by banging around the house till my totally-undressed wound bashes up against some random piece of furniture and becomes all bloody and gooshy again?

I think not.

Dr. Shah and I also discussed the merits of silver-nitrate-burning. Emily occasionally notes a small area of hypergranulation — that’s where the new flesh that’s growing in tends to grow up higher than skin level, and needs to be brought down a bit — and then she “burns” it back with a silver nitrate stick. Those areas have become much smaller over time, and now they are really tiny.

But Dr. Shah’s comment took me a bit aback: “When I think of the kind of hypergranulation that requires silver nitrate, I think of a HONKIN’ BIG FLAP OF SKIN. And you’ve never had that.”

Well, that’s one small mercy!

So my experiment seems to be getting good results. Emily and I are hoping that by the Vernal Equinox — that’d be March 21st — maybe the wound will be fully closed. Or if not then, we can aim at the Summer Solstice (June 21st).

Thanks for reading — Betsy