Category — 1

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

Sunday, February 7th — My yoga therapist, Kelli Funkhouser, has been studying drawing and painting for several years. When our cat Amy died in January, Kelli said she’d like to paint a portrait of her for us, from a small photo I had enlarged.

I just wanted to share the resulting painting with all of you. I love, love, love it: it looks exactly like the cat I’ve loved for eleven years, right down to the pensive look in the green, green eyes. What a wonderful gift!

Kelli enjoyed doing Amy’s portrait so much that she’s thinking of doing more animal paintings. You can look at other work she’s done on her Facebook page. I can only say, I am astounded that she’s as good at painting as she is at yoga and physical therapy!

Thanks for reading, and for looking at Amy.  Just think:  this little creature, who had such a tough life on her own for so many years, living outdoors and becoming wise and cautious by necessity — and then had eleven more years of warmth and safety and food and love given and received, is now “known” by everyone who has read about her here, and looked at her thoughtful little face, shining in the sun! — Betsy

Saturday, February 6th — A lot of catching up to do from the last post! It all happened pretty quickly after that.

During her first night with us, as I had expected, Hope was out from under my Beloved Spouse’s bed, and roaming the house. I know Chloe saw her, but there were no yowls or hisses (I sleep lightly, I’d know). Once, when I got up in the night, as I returned to bed I saw Hope sitting in the hall at my doorway, just staring at me. I talked to her softly and invited her to come see me, but she just faded away into the darkness.

I should tell you what she looks like, and a little history. She’s very beautiful, nine years old, a “tuxedo-tortoiseshell,” according to Sarah, the pet store manager. In Hope’s case, that means that her tummy, chest, four paws, and a bit of her face are white. The top of her head, her back, and most of her tail are blue-gray. The rest of her — legs, sides of her face, and the underside of her tail — is striped and shadowed with silver, white, charcoal, and a pinky-gray that I can only call “peach”. It’s an unusual coloring, and I’ve never seen a cat that looks like this before. Around her eyes (big and green) there’s a line of charcoal and an outer line of peach. It looks as if she’d spent half an hour on her eye makeup. I wish I could do mine as well.

The history part seems oddly predetermined. Hope lived with a single lady and another female cat  the first six years of her life. Then the lady moved out of the country; so she took Hope and the other cat to her veterinarian and told him to euthanize the cats, since she couldn’t take them with her. (!!) On the morning of the day they were supposed to be put to sleep, Sarah (the pet store manager) stopped by that vet’s office, not her usual vet, to pick up some special cat medicine. She saw the two cats, asked about them, and when she learned they were scheduled for The Injection that afternoon, said she would take them herself. They became “store residents,” along with a couple of other cats who lived there. Beautiful and loving as she was, Hope was never chosen by people who wanted to buy a cat, because she was older. People always want kittens, and there are always kittens being rescued and brought to Sarah. The young cats came and went, but Hope stayed.

I have been frequenting that pet store ever since I started going to Seaside Chiropractic, since it’s on the way home and I can get human-grade cat food there. And I’ve been petting and talking to Hope (and the others) all that time, admiring her, telling Sarah that I wished I could take her home but that our oldest cat, Amy, would never stand for it.

After Amy died, when Robert began moaning about how he needed a two-cat family, he wanted another cat soon… I sent him over to have a look at Hope and a talk with Sarah, and see what he thought. I knew a young cat wouldn’t be right for us. We need a Geezer, to fit in with our Geezer lifestyle and energy level. Chloe’s a Geezer Cat too, and none of the three of us would have the patience to put up with a young cat’s explorations and other shenanigans. When Robert came home with a huge smile on his face, and announced — before he had both feet out of the car — “She’s a PERFECT CHOICE!”, I knew that Hope was meant to live with us. I talked with Sarah about it the next day. She said, “You know, all that time you were watching Hopie — I was watching you, and thinking that you’d be the perfect person to take her home!”

At 11:00 a.m. precisely, on Saturday, January 23rd, Hope capitulated. She just visibly said to herself, “Oh, the hell with all this dodging and hiding under the bed: I’m starving for some love and a good tummy-rub!” And she walked out, gave me a tiny double meow, and started weaving around my legs, purring like crazy. She threw herself onto her back, begging, “Oh please, rub my tummy!” The little thing was just starved for touch, after two days of not letting us pet her.

Ever since then, it’s a done deal. Hope is a lap-cat. She cuddles, she snuggles, she sleeps with me sometimes… she talks! Not as much as Amy did, but there’s good raw material there — she’s a talking cat. There have been a couple of frantic chases through the hall, but both times Chloe has been the Chased and Hope has been the Chaser. Sticking up for herself, not taking any of that yowling and hissing, not intimidated but not threatening, either. It’s going to be fine.

This morning, for the first time, I put her food dishes on the kitchen counter, in the place where Chloe used to eat when Amy had the Prime Cat spot. Now Chloe has that, and Hope will eat in Chloe’s old spot.

I am so glad we are patching up the hole in our family. Never the hole in our hearts where Amy is, though… But Hopie is lovely, and sweet, and it is healing to observe the beginnings of a relationship between her and Chloe.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Thursday, January 21st — I knew that we’d need to have another cat eventually, after Amy’s death. My Beloved Spouse has been so depressed during her illness, and especially since she left us. He not only misses Amy terribly, but he misses the interactions between her and Chloe, our 11-year-old tortoiseshell. I miss it all too, but I’ve been through this cycle many times before, and he has not.

I didn’t expect, though, that it would happen so soon. I’m still not done with finding myself in tears  when I think about Amy. I could have waited a bit.

However, taking advantage of a brief pause in the torrential rains this afternoon, we picked up our new family member, Hope, from the pet store where she has been living for two years, and brought her home in a new cat carrier, lamenting loudly all the way. (Hope was lamenting, not us.) Robert sat with her in the back seat while I drove. Hope stuck her paw out of the carrier door in the midst of the lamentations and let him stroke it – very sweet.

I have not had a chance to touch her yet today. We decided the best place for her to disembark would be in Robert’s room, which adjoins the bathroom where the TWO litter boxes are located (the new one has a hood over the top, since that’s what Hope was used to at the pet store). Robert carried her into the separate part of the bathroom that now contains one toilet, one bidet (great for holding bags of litter), and two litter boxes.  She looked at both and then sat down on the other side of the bidet in the I’m-gonna-make-a-dash-for-it position. She was pretty frightened, of course – new place, all new smells, new people – and the minute we left the bathroom, she disappeared. Totally. Gone.

We’re sure she’s under Robert’s bed, because Chloe has been in a few times and stood by the bed, motionless, smelling that there’s a New Cat under there. Chloe is too fat to get under the bed, which is probably just as well. Unfortunately, Robert went around with his big lantern-flashlight, trying to see if he could spot her in the very crowded closet; I’m sure that didn’t exactly encourage her to come out. I’ve sat on the bed and talked to her, and I heard a little rustle, which was probably Hope moving against Robert’s elderly golf clubs…

The store manager gave us a rather ratty little soft stuffed cat bed that Hope likes, and we’ve put that down under the bedside table, along with water and a dish of the dry food she’s used to. That’s about all we can do for now. My guess is that she will gingerly venture out during the night, when we’re all asleep, and case the joint. We’re not closing any doors, so she can decide how far she wants to go. Chloe has had “the smell” of Hope for a few days, with that little cat-bed that also smells of Hope’s four friends in the pet store who rested there from time to time as well; also from my raincoat, drying in the hall, because I wore it when I visited her yesterday. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to keep her from getting all yowly when Hope emerges. Chloe was on the other end of the pecking order with Amy; perhaps she’ll remember and be kind to Hope.

So a new chapter in our lives begins. I still have some crying left to do for Amy’s absence, but I can do that privately, and give Hope a lot of love when she finally decides to come out.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 — Last week I had another re-exam at Seaside Chiropractic.

In March it will be two years since I made a commitment to ongoing chiropractic treatment with Dr. David Klein: two amazing years! For most of that time, with the exception of about six months during which I was toting around either

• 500 maggots embedded in my leg to clean out a large infected wound, or
• a 5-pound Wound-Vac on my shoulder –  a computerized gadget involving a suction cup and lots of plastic tubes, to encourage new tissue to form within the pit left by the Maggot Clean-Up Crew,

my re-exam charts showed a steady upward progress. It was dramatic at first, then leveled off a bit; but it was always upward, bit by bit.

Re-exams are given approximately every 12 visits. I used to have Dr. Klein’s team of sidekicks assist me in posting the graphs so I could share them with you. However, now that I’ve become such a longtime patient, the graph and its accompanying legend have to be so small to include everything that it’s hardly worth posting. I have to use my reading glasses AND a magnifying glass to get the whole picture.

So this most recent graph showed a few interesting changes. Once again my legs are “even”: for ages, the left leg would be an inch longer, then — abracadabra! — the RIGHT leg would be an inch longer. And then it would change again. Once, for several months, they were even, but it didn’t last. Now they are the same length again. No wonder I’m gimpy and walk with a cane!

It was a little discouraging, as I moved various parts of me in response to David Klein’s instructions, to keep hearing “restricted,” “restricted,” “restricted,” again and again, in reference to just about everything. But then, surprise! My right shoulder, which has been out of alignment since the beginning of my journey with chiropractic, is at last where it’s supposed to be. One of the original reasons for my setting out on this journey was to see if chiropractic could make enough difference in my arthritis-ruined shoulders that I could avoid having them replaced, as had been proposed by the surgeons. DK was pretty confident that he could restore an acceptable amount of range-of-motion, as well as reduce the pain to an acceptable level. I have to say, the shoulders still hurt a lot; but I can reach out to both sides, and I can reach up with both arms far enough to get the oatmeal box off the TOP SHELF. I can certainly live with that.  And now they are beginning to straighten out, as well.

So there’s a long way still to go; but the line on the graph connecting the dots between re-exams is creeping upward again, ever so slowly. I like “dramatic” better than “slowly,” but that probably isn’t a realistic expectation at this point. I will settle for any kind of upward I can get, with gratitude.

Thank you yet again, David, for your constant and dedicated attention to restoring this 72-year-old body to a level of functionality that will take some of those years away.

Onward and upward, then; and thanks for reading.  — Betsy

Saturday, January 9th —

My little cat was put to sleep at 3:00 pm yesterday. It was a terribly difficult day – but the procedure couldn’t have been more compassionate.

By Wednesday, it had become clear — we thought — that Amy was just getting too tired to fight it any more. Our Mobile Vet had told us to “look 24 to 48 hours ahead in making a decision; things move very quickly with cats.” So on Wednesday, I tearfully called and asked him to make an appointment for Friday.

Then, of course, all through Thursday I kept wondering if it was the right decision. Amy was outside under the bush on the slope when I went off to the chiropractor. When I got back an hour and a half later, she was on my bed: so she had been able to let herself in the cat-flap, make her way to my room, and jump up on the bed. Maybe it wasn’t time yet, after all…? But the vet assured me that he always examines a cat carefully, under mild sedation, before proceeding with euthanasia. He is a cat-lover himself, and doesn’t want to do anything prematurely.

I really love Dr. Doss, the Mobile Vet. He said right at the start that he would sedate her, using an agent that could be reversed if what he found led him to believe Amy could have a few more weeks of reasonably comfortable life. However, what he found was pretty much what we expected. There was a large tumor in the nasal cavity, pressing down on the hard palate and causing it to sag into the mouth. (I could see it clearly, when he opened her mouth and showed me.) One nostril was completely occluded by the tumor. That little cat was operating on only one nostril for the past few weeks! It astounds me to think she was still able to jump up on the bed, jump in and out of the cat-window, and everything else she did! What a tough cookie she was.

After the sedative came a painkiller, just in case; and finally, the injection that stopped her heart. It took a few minutes, during which I stroked her and murmured to her, and told her how much we loved her. I was crying like Niagara Falls all this time, of course. As I watched her little side go in… and out… and in… I saw it stop. I said, “That was it, right there, that moment, wasn’t it?” And Dr. Doss said, “Yes, it was.” He sniffed, and I caught him wiping his eyes, so I handed him the box of Kleenex, and he blew his nose. A real snorter! I patted him on the shoulder and (weepingly) told him I was really glad he cared enough about Amy to shed a tear for her. That’s what makes him different from other vets, to my mind.

I had Robert bring Chloe in so she could see that Amy was dead. She’ll miss her, after a while, and look for her, but it  was important for her to realize that Amy didn’t just go away. At this point, she is just delighted that finally we are letting her eat from Amy’s dishes, in Amy’s place; she’s been coveting that for years.

And then Dr. Doss put the little body – so very small! – into a plastic bag, very tenderly, to be delivered to the San Diego Pet Memorial outfit. They will cremate her individually and send us back her ashes in a little cedar chest with a plaque on top with her name. I think we will scatter some of Amy under our dwarf Meyer lemon tree on the slope, where she loved to sit in the sun; and under the bush at the top of the slope, where she spent much of her last weeks. The rest we’ll keep.

So that’s the end of the Amy era for me – eleven years. I cannot even imagine what it will be like to be without her: from the relentless alarm-clock-at-six-a.m. hollers for breakfast; to the daily argument about which of us was going to sit in my computer chair (she always won by pretending to be too soundly asleep to hear me asking her to move, and I always ended up moving the chair out of the way, with her in it,  and nabbing Robert’s chair so I could do my work); to the loving, trusting snuggles at night when she decided it was my turn to have her sleep with me. She was one wonderful companion.

Amy lived the last 11 of her 30 years with us. It took three years after we moved in here for her to trust us enough to come to the door for food twice a day; and  a month after that to trust us enough to come into the house. She was shy of things-like-sticks and things-that-rustled loudly (think umbrellas, canes, and plastic bags) for a long time. People had not been kind to Amy, it seems. At least, her first home had been one in which they loved her enough to have her spayed — otherwise, she never would have been able to survive when she was lost, or ditched, or strayed away.

She was one of those “talking cats” who tries to mimic human intonations, and really understands an astonishing amount of human conversation. You could have a very satisfying two-way chat with Amy on a variety of subjects, not only Food or Going Outdoors or Time for Bed.

Of all the many cats I’ve lived with and loved in my long life — there have been 18 of them — Amy was one of the most loving, expressive, and interesting. Watching her regain her comfort with relating to humans, after 16 or more years of living outdoors, on her own, was very touching. Once she decided to move in with us, Amy and I made a contract. I promised her that she would have the best Golden Years any cat could have, with human-quality cat food and half-and-half twice a day, and that we would love her forever. She promised, in return, that she would give us her love and her trust, and keep us as her family for the rest of her life.

We both kept our promises.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Tuesday, September 8th –  The day after Labor Day, and all is well! Very well, in fact: thanks to Dr. Klein’s  expert attentions twice a week for the past couple of months, I am rapidly returning to the level of flexibility I had reached a year ago.

Let me backtrack a bit. On August 16th — six months to the day after I had The Fall that changed my life so much — I was discharged from the Wound Care center at Mercy Hospital. Post-maggots, post-Wound-Vac, post-a-whole-lot-of-trouble — and not to forget post-Apligraf — my cell-phone-sized wound was totally healed over. Sam the Skin had completely melted into ME, and I have now got a lovely new baby skin covering what used to be a horrendous pit.

The Bad Part: There goes my social life! After five months of going to Mercy Hospital three times a week, gee, what in the world am I going to do for fun? I find myself really missing seeing Emily and the gang of physical therapists who did so much for me, so caringly. I did write  a long letter to the Head of the Rehab Department, telling her how incredibly fine her staff is, and naming them all. I’m hoping that will filter down to them somehow, because they really are exceptionally good at what they do, and good people, too. I could have had a lot worse social life for five months, believe me!

The Good Part: Well, it’s mighty good to be wearing only that Velcro contraption, the Circ-Aid, and a jersey footless tube-sock, during the day. I do not miss the heavy dressings, and neither does my leg. I can’t tell you how blissful it was, that first night, with just me and my skin inside my pajama leg!

I seem to have lost sensation in the area around the wound; but that isn’t to be wondered at, since a whole lot of nerves were severed. Maybe some of them will grow back. Meanwhile, the skin over and around the wound doesn’t feel like human skin to my fingertips. It feels kind of like thin plastic. I’m supposed to rub Vitamin E into it twice a day, gently, to help the skin thicken. It will be extremely fragile for up to two years (TWO YEARS!! Oy!) and even when it gets as strong as it’s ever going to get, it’ll be only 80% of its original strength. But that doesn’t really faze me.

Another Bad Part: I can’t put the Circ-Aid on by myself. If you knew me, you’d know this is nothing short of torture. I have a very, very hard time asking for help: fiercely independent, and proud of it. This means that I have to have the Beloved Spouse put it on for me each morning. Since the Beloved Spouse’s morning often doesn’t begin till noon (he’s not an early riser by choice, and I get up with the birds and the cats), I am often without my graded compression device till mid-day. Gotta do something about this.

Another Good Part: What I plan to do about it is: work with David Klein, and my old friend the Chiropractic Adjustment Machine (CAM), to restore more flexibility to my lower spine and my shoulders. With that, I should be able, in time, to reach my ankle from a sitting position and deal with all those Velcro straps by myself. I can already do the top ones, and the middle ones — I think I could fasten them and make a kind of tube, and just stick my foot through it. But those ankle straps are the deal-breakers.

Another part of this Good Part is that, according to the graph of my last re-exam a couple of weeks ago, I’ve gone way up again since my plummeting low in June. Between January and June, I lost so many of the areas I had recovered that I was about level with where I’d been a year ago. Now I’m on the way up again. It seems to be easier to get the bones back where they should be, once they’ve had a chance to be there before.

David is happy to have a clear goal towards which we can work. And I know it will be successful.

So things are good here… my body is happy to be recovering its balance … I don’t feel as if I’m going to topple every time I take a few steps. It really is amazing, the kind of healing this elderly body is able to achieve — with the help of Mr. Clean, La Jolla’s BEST chiropractor, and several wonderful physical therapists, especially Emily Cutting.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Monday, August 3rd — Sam the Skin has done his job well and thoroughly, I am happy to report, although it didn’t turn out exactly as I expected. But then, what ever does?

There has continued to be a small (and getting always smaller) area of hypergranulated tissue that has stubbornly refused to lie flat and low. A couple more silver nitrate burns have brought it down pretty well. At last viewing, on Thursday, July 30th, it was only the size of my smallest fingernail! Even with this bump in the middle, the Apligraf has been able to bring the edges of the wound ever closer to each other. Now, instead of trying a third skin (Son of Sam??), they’re inclined just to wait and see if it’ll completely close by itself.

It seems pretty likely that  will happen; and I will find out tomorrow if it’s happening. It absolutely amazes me how the Apligraf has melted into my own skin around the edges of the wound… and it just keeps going! Once skin has grown over the top of the last little island, it will be very fragile for a while, and I’ll still have to be bandaged up.

Hopefully, it won’t be too long till I can go back to using the Velcro Circ-Aid. The advantage of that is that I can take it off at night and just cover the leg with a soft jersey sock. Air can circulate, and that ought to help strengthen the skin. The disadvantage is that I’ll need to have the Beloved Spouse help me put it on each morning: I can’t reach far enough down to the ankle to deal with the lowest straps, because of my tantalum-and-titanium hip joints. But I think we can manage it.

Anyhow, I have a feeling of anticipation and excitement: I’m ALMOST THERE! It will have been half a year, at least, from the time I fell and got the gashed shin in February (wound the size of a cell phone, remember) to the time the last little open bit is closed over. What a journey!

Happily, I am back to seeing the Seaside Chiropractic folks twice a week now. It’s not quite as good as three times a week; but I am regaining the progress I lost during the time my body has been putting all its energy toward healing the infection, and then the wound. It’s a lot to ask of an elderly body. I am so grateful that Dr. David Klein had gotten my spine and other assorted joints into as good shape as they were when all this began!

Well, we shall see tomorrow if it’s completely closed, or still Almost.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Monday, July 13th — Two weeks ago today, the second Apligraf skin graft was applied to my wound, after the first one failed because of hypergranulation. I want to do everything I can to make certain that this second one remains with me permanently. So I’ve named it Sam — Sam the Skin — and I talk to Sam several times a day, telling him what a great neighborhood it is, and how happy he’s going to be if he’ll just settle in and become a permanent resident.

Emily was away on vacation in Wisconsin all last week, and so Leesa took her place. Leesa’s choice of dressing for Sam was the usual foam, topped by a wrapping of cotton that looks for all the world like the stuff they used to use for quilt batting before the polyester fluff-stuff came on the market. After the cotton-batting wrap, I got a set of three pinkish wraps that looked like Ace bandages, but that are not stretchy like Ace bandages. There’s a special way to wrap these: first one clockwise, second one counterclockwise, third one in a figure-8 pattern… at least, that’s what I think it was. The result was a leg that was fat enough that most of my jeans and pants wouldn’t go over it, and a foot that was too big to go into any but my Velcro-strapped sandals, on the largest possible width.

But the neatest part of what Leesa did to help my Apligraf Sam feel happy in his new home was to use Maltodextrin powder, sprinkled over the Steri-strips that border Sam, and also around the edges at the back. Apparently my skin “macerates” easily — i.e., and literally, gets “chewed up” and develops raw spots and blisters — and the Maltodextrin absorbs any extra drainage and keeps it dry.

But wait — you may say: isn’t Maltodextrin a sweetener? Yes, it is: I looked at the list of ingredients on an extremely synthetic and unhealthy (but devilishly tasty, unfortunately) lemon meringue pie my unwise Beloved Spouse had brought home, and there was Maltodextrin, the third or fourth ingredient. What a versatile compound! There’s no way I would eat that pie; it didn’t even need to be refrigerated! And what self-respecting pie containing eggs wouldn’t beg for refrigeration? Only one that’s 85% additives, that’s what! But as a desiccating sprinkle to sop up the gooey drainage on my leg, it’s perfect.

Emily was back today. She had arranged with Angela, the representative from Organogenesis, to come  for another look at Sam the Skin, to see how he’s coming along in his new digs. And all three of us were thrilled… delighted… and amazed to see how good that wound looks! Sam has melted right into the rest of me; it certainly looks as if it’s going to be a permanent relationship. Emily took a photo and measured the wound (only 2 x 2.5 centimeters now, where it used to be 6 x 6.5 several weeks back), and we all gave each other a high-five. Angela said the Apligraf looks astonishingly good for only two weeks, and I think that is extra-fantastic, given my age.

So this was a GOOD day, and one that I found extremely encouraging. I am so grateful to Organogenesis for making this amazing Apligraf available, and to the Wound Care team at Scripps Mercy Hospital for thinking of it as a solution for me (thanks, Ryan — I think it was your idea first!)

I guess I won’t be seeing Angela again unless something goes wrong with Sam and we have to give it a third try. But everything is looking good right now, and I certainly hope it continues the same way. I am really ready for this business to be over, or at least to begin to be over. Organogenesis is pretty amazing, to have sent a rep to check this process at several points.  How lucky I am, to be able to benefit from this extraordinary medical technology!

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Sunday, June 28th — Well, it’s been another month since I posted, and I’m sorry. Two of those weeks I was away in Massachusetts, minus a computer.  But again, I’ll just have to hit the highlights for you — it’s been a mighty full month for me.

Class of 1959 Radcliffe/Harvard Reunion

Attending my 50th reunion was my official reason for making the transcontinental trip at a time when I probably should have stayed home and continued my three-times-weekly visits to the Wound Care Center. But my TRUE reason for going was to spend a couple of weeks with my daughter Sarah, her excellent husband Christopher, and my two small grandsons, Johnston (5.5) and Hayes (turning 3 in July). A year between visits when children are young is way too much!

You may not know that Radcliffe College was a liberal arts college for women, incorporated in 1879, and the “coordinate college” with Harvard University. I say “was” because in 1963, graduates of both colleges began receiving joint Radcliffe/Harvard diplomas; and in 1999, Harvard swallowed up Radcliffe entirely. Both men and women now attend Harvard; Radcliffe is no more, except as the Radcliffe Institute, a specialized post-graduate study program that uses Radcliffe’s buildings.  (The dorms are now part of the Harvard “house” system. They’ve been co-ed for a long time. But not for 50 years.)

When I was at Radcliffe, all my classes but one were held AT Harvard (just a mile’s walk up the brick sidewalks along Garden Street in Cambridge), WITH Harvard professors, and WITH Harvard students in attendance as well.The one class that was actually held at Radcliffe was Physical Education, with such unforgettable offerings as Fencing, Archery, Bowling, and Body Mechanics, as well as the usual Volleyball and various other sporty-type activities.  In all respects, I received the same education as the Harvard students, and was graded on the same scale by the same professors. I loved most of my courses, with the notable exceptions of Physical Education and a Statistics course I stumbled into by mistake.  I worked hard, learned an enormous amount, married one of the Teaching Assistants in the Spanish Department three months before my graduation, and do not now recall EVER having felt “disenfranchised” by being a female student.

That was the buzz word, however, among many of my classmates at our 50th reunion. There was a lot of talk about how we had been given short shrift in one way or another, discriminated against in favor of the young men with whom we attended classes. There was probably even more such chatter than I heard, since I took part in very few of the events (mostly lunches and dinners) and skipped the symposia, which were doubtless very interesting and worthwhile. Truthfully, I felt more “disenfranchised” at the reunion than I ever did as a student. The Harvards who were reuning got lovely crimson tote bags; the Radcliffes got a manila envelope with our name badges, event schedules, list of attendees and their “maiden names” (ugh!), and a bright orange sheet about swine flu and what to do if we thought we were coming down with it. Now, that’s discrimination, I do believe.

That’s enough about the reunion, except to say it’s a weird experience to look at some old geezer or elderly lady in a cardigan and sensible shoes and realize who that person used to be. Even stumping along with my cane, with my ongoing leg problems — I’m not doing so badly, all things considered. It could be a lot worse. I’m glad I attended.

The Grandma Game

Wonderful days with Sarah and her family! I always come away from seeing Sarah full of inspiration: she is incredibly organized (her kitchen junk drawer is tidy and clearly arranged! her spices are alphabetized! her cookbooks have lists on the front covers of favorite recipes and the pages on which they can be found!) — and she is astonishingly creative.  I loved the way they just let me slide into their busy daily life and become part of it for two weeks. The boys are full of energy, sunny most of the time with a few sudden thunderstorms that quickly pass. Sarah and I went to see Star Trek, and loved it.

I got to sit in on some “play dates” that left me feeling like an anthropologist observing a strange new culture, the natives of which fortunately spoke English. On a play date, the mommies sit and drink coffee and eat yummy little things that somebody baked, and talk about the teachers. The kids run madly around the yard, shrieking with glee, swinging and sliding and digging and chasing. Every few minutes an Intervention is called for. One mommy dashes over to her child and says something like, “Tell me what happened before he hit you,” or “What were you doing before she put mud in your mouth?” The crisis is averted, no one is bleeding; somebody has to go indoors to the bathroom; somebody locks the back door from the inside, and somebody else has to be persuaded to unlock it… I was exhausted. How do they do it? How in the world did I do it forty years ago?

Sarah very kindly, expertly, and graciously changed the goopy dressings on my leg each day. I hated having to ask her; but I guess leg goop held no disgust for her, since she just finished toilet-training a two-year-old boy.

Leg Update

You may remember that I received an Apligraf skin graft just before I flew off to Massachusetts. Two days after I returned to San Diego, I went to the Wound Care Center, expecting that when the special covering over the Apligraf was removed for the first time, everything would be coming along nicely.

Yeah, right.

Apparently my body was so enthusiastic about its six weeks with the Wound-Vac, during which it was encouraged to Make New Tissue and Fill In the Pit, that — even with the Wound-Vac removed — part of it continued forming new tissue in the wound area. So when the covering came off, there was a neat little mesa of new flesh about the size of a silver dollar, rising above the surface of the leg. They called it “hypergranulation,” but whatever its name, it meant that the Apligraf had not “taken” properly and had to be removed.

I was rather disheartened by this; and not at all happy that the hypergranulated area (oh, let’s just call it “the mesa”) would have to be reduced by (1) scrubbing hard with gauze pads, and (2) several applications of silver nitrate, to burn it down chemically. But the Good News was that Medicare will cover up to FIVE of these skin grafts. That must mean that it’s not uncommon for it not to work on the first try. The last week has been spent doing everything we could to take the Mesa down to just below skin level. As of Friday, it was looking really good. My little team of experts are planning to put on a new Apligraf on Monday, tomorrow. And then I guess we’re back to a couple of weeks of changing goopy dressings while the collagen part of the graft settles in, and the other part begins to Become Betsy.

I am still excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity to have one of these grafts, and I’m determined that it will work this time. The Leg and I have been having some serious conversations, during which I remind The Leg that if it ever wants to be nice and whole and normal again, this is our best chance. It needs to cooperate by curbing its enthusiasm for growing upward, and channeling it into welcoming the graft as part of itself.

I’ll let you know how we progress, the Leg and I.

Thanks for reading — Betsy