Saturday, September 05, 2009

BIG DECISION - DO I  SHOW NURSE SUPERIOR DRESSING TECHNIQUE?


I apologised for taking up the doctor's time with my egocentric concern, which I thought might be because I had cut my thumb six days earlier.  I did feel a bit of a fraud and said so.

How did you do it?.........My thumb got mixed up with a large onion........
You know where the wound is, can you cut off the dressing?...........Yes, no problem. 

The doc checked out the digit and decided treatment was definitely needed. Surgery nurse re-dressed the poorly thumb.  She started with a minuscule  brown rectangular item which she called 'enodeen', (local brogue for anodine or Anadin, or.... was this a malaprop or a spoonerism?) and with  infinite care, wedged it under the thumb nail.  I wasn't to worry if the dressing seeped yellow out to the outer coverings.  The remainder of the job was done with a large plaster-type product that doesn't stick to the wound.  It was cut in strategic places to form ungainly folds.  Apparently, a doctor in a burns unit was fond of this kind of wound dressing.

Again, I removed the dressing on my return visit, next day.  I am ever so happy to  report there was a major beneficial change in the patient's manual 'element'.  Nurse will see me again after the weekend, to ensure that all is progressing nicely; not just the digit but my general well-being, too.  Meantime, I am allowed to expose the thumb in my own environment, but not the wider world.  Communication almost chugged to a halt here, as nurse was trying to explain that the germs and dirt in my own immediate environs, "which you are used to", were just fine, but the global others were not.  Yay!  I could have a wash without wearing a rubber glove and all the other bits and pieces to keep the thumb dry.

My own re-dressing of my thumb, folds cut in to the dressing and all, is so much neater than the last two professionally applied dressings.  I put that down to having some basic idea of cutting folds for dress-making.  You never know when the old skills will be useful, whatever level of skill you have with them.  The next big decision is, do I go into nurse on Monday and demonstrate my superior wound covering technique!

2 comments:

TG said...

The next big decision is, do I go into nurse on Monday and demonstrate my superior wound covering technique!

I'd say: Yes! Demonstrate it :)

ZACL said...

Okay, to retain reasonable levels of diplomacy, how do you suggest it should be done?

:)