Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Thing

We'll call it The Thing.

I'm going to do another Granny blog, but do not despair, dear readers, for it's not my complaining about Mom's condition or her emotional well-being. And this is because she's actually feeling some better, and that new medication and the wet wraps she did last week have stopped the itching and helped the redness in her skin. I'm amazed.

As was Dr SuperSkin, who I took Granny to see on her follow-up appointment yesterday.

Granny, Paw, and I headed down in the morning, and after only a small snafu in the directions department, found our way there and got to the office. After a small wait, she was called in, and I went along.

And here's the part of the story where I have to travel back to last week.

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Last Wednesday, after the first wet wrap, I got a call from my sister. Seems my dad had called her in a panic, saying that Granny did her first wrap, then got in the shower to rinse off, and when she got out she was the proud owner of a pus-filled blister on her leg. Dad was all atwitter because the very first skin doctor she saw, all the way down in Florida back when they used to be able to travel, told her if she ever got a pus-filled blister she needed to go to the hospital immediately. My sister said she was heading over there to check it out and see what was up.

She later called me back and said, "It's nothing. It's a spot, about the size of a quarter, looks like a blood blister, and she's probably hit her leg, and it's raised, but certainly not pus-filled. They said they'd call Dr ITalkJustLikeHuckleberryHound and ask him about it."

Which they did. And then went to see Dr ITJLHH because he said he wanted to see the thing, and he pronounced it just where some water from the wrap or shower had gotten under one of the many psoriasis spots on her leg, and he wrapped it up with some gauze and said to keep it wrapped till she saw Dr SuperSkin.

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So there we were in the little room at Dr SuperSkin's, and first a nurse came and asked if she'd done the wraps and the medicaton, Mom said yes, and when the nurse asked how that went, Mom's reply was, "Awful." And I just jumped all over that and said, "It was not! You said it really helped your itching and everything!" So she went on to say that the awful part was the process of doing it, when Paw piped up and said, "I'm the one who did it, you just sat there!"

Then the nurse was typing all this into Mom's electronic chart on the computer, and Mom mentioned this new wrinkle of the spot on her leg. So the nurse elevated her leg and took off the bandage, and, well, I can't tell you what happened to me when I saw my mom's leg.

Contrary to my sister's relaying of the spot, this place was huge. It was about three inches in diameter and looked like, well, all I could think of is that it looked like a strawberry tart that was baked too long and the top got burned.

The reason it was raised is not because it was blister-like, but because the layer of it right above the skin was a good half-inch of congealed blood. Then the top of it was black, dead, hard skin. The gauze patch it was wrapped around was bright pink, as was the liquid dripping from it. It was horribly ugly and yet the most beautiful and intriguing thing I'd ever seen. I kept wanting to touch it but was afraid to since Mom gets infections so easily. Mostly I wish I'd have had my camera.

But since I didn't, I thought I'd try to draw you a little picture. First, the front view.

























And now the side view.

























Boy, I wish I was a better artist, so I could give it its full value of stupendousness.

When Dr SuperSkin and his associate, Dr BoyAmICute, came in, they both said, "Hello, my God! What is that?" Both professed they'd never seen anything like that, and Dr SuperSkin himself said he wished he'd brought his camera phone in with him, that this would go over really well at seminars.

By the way, Dr SuperSkin and Dr BoyAmICute are both incredibly nice and friendly guys, and they were amazed that after not one week, as it took a day or two to get the prescriptions filled, but only five days, that Mom's skin had improved so much. They told her to continue with the medication, and that she could now use the salve that goes with the wet wraps but she didn't have to wrap, she could just spread it on her skin as is. (I spoke to her tonight and she did just that last night and said she didn't itch at all. Boy, I can't tell you how great that makes me feel.)

Then they looked some more at The Thing, and Dr SuperSkin said it was probably a ______ (insert some medical term I can't remember), which was a result of where - well, let's say you and I would bump our leg on the end of the bed and not think twice about it, someone with Granny's skin would do the same thing and because the layers of the skin are so thin, a hematoma will form, and that she needed to keep it very tightly wrapped it would go down slowly. They were so friendly and nice I couldn't help myself and pleaded with them to take it off so I could watch, and though they laughed at that - my mom said at that point, "This is my other daughter, by the way," and Dad chimed in, "The weird one," they said they couldn't remove it because it would be more of a hazard to start removing stuff on her skin and risking infection than to just leave it there and let it go down by itself.

And they gave her some high-powered antibiotic as a precaution, and said she was good for three weeks before she had to come back.

Mom will have to go in a few days to get the bandage changed, and now I want to go with her so I can see The Thing again. Possibly with camera in tow.

Then again, I like watching brain surgery on TV. God, that PBS show where they did an operation on some kid where they sawed a triangle in his skull and lifted it off, exposing his brain, and then lifted off the bridge of his nose and there was all kinds of goo in there....

OK, so I am the weird one.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! So, what are some things to do in the car?
- Honorable Mention goes to Mr M, because he always wants to win acro but never plays. (and a third person didn't play this week)
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her "Driving zanily, especially under Fred." (I just want to see Lily driving under Fred.)
- And this week's winner is Duke, with his "Driving zee European Union, Fraulein." Good one, Duke!
- Thanks to all who played this week, you've all done very well!

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4 Comments:

Blogger The Calico Quilter said...

Oh, Lord, now I know who watches those operation shows on Discovery Health that forced me to program the TV to skip that channel!

8:49 AM  
Blogger Marla Bronstein said...

"I can't tell you what happened to me when I saw my mom's leg."

Good thing I had already swallowed my bite of cereal before I read this or it would have come out my nose. After spending 72 fun filled hours in the hospital with mom in April, I feel ya girlfriend.

So so glad granny is so so better!!

Love

M

9:43 AM  
Blogger Lily said...

Here's my question -- why do they show all that Discovery Health channel IN the hospital? When I was in, it was the on-the-air networks, Headline News (and you know how much we love that around here) and Discovery Health. I am not interested in people's weird diseases and procedures when I'm stuck in the hospital. Give me Comedy Central, dammit.

9:46 PM  
Blogger The Calico Quilter said...

Lily, that's like the closed circuit TV health topics programming they play in my doctor's waiting room - it gives the hypochondriacs four or five more conditions to claimn to have!

8:08 AM  

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