The Art of the Blade

There were two appointments today - one for each of us.  Mine was first, but I'll speak about that one later.  However, since mine was first we went downtown early and just sat in a coffee shop in-between while waiting to go to Deb's appointment.

I'd previously written that we hoped to be able to have Deb's last drain pulled on Monday if the drain cooperated.  It did not.  At least not right away.  It actually picked up in volume initially (taking over anything that the other abdominal drain had been dealing with) before finally starting to settle down on Monday and Tuesday.  It is now gone as of about 1115 this morning.  WooHoo!  Done with drains!

We hadn't expected to see Dr. Paige today, but he was the first one to walk in the door (followed by RN Susan, who actually pulled the drain).  He took a look at Deb's incisions, et al., and was very pleased with her progress.

Except maybe her navel.

We still can't really see it, but it's not healing as fast as he'd like.  He mentioned two different ways to deal with it surgically.  The first, and quickest, is to just seal it up and leave only a scar behind.  I like that one because I can play off on the whole Alien Abduction/Replacement scenario when we go to the beach.  Otherwise they can do a multistage process to try to work on it.  Meanwhile we are going to be using a new type of dressing made from algae and silver (algae to provide natural debridement and silver for it's anti-bacterial properties.  It may turn out that in two weeks the dressing will help reveal a healed navel without having to do anything more surgically.  That would be nice.

To recap: 1) No more drains. 2) Algae in the belly button.

My appointment was at the building right next door two hours before Deb's.  I'd been to my GP on Monday for general physical and had pointed out a bump on my arm that was annoying.  We couldn't tell if it was maybe an infected bug bite or possibly a squamous cell carcinoma.  I got referred to a dermatologist today.  She wasn't able to say exactly what it was, but just to be sure she cut it off (the bump, not my arm) and sent it to pathology.  Now I have a cauterized wound on my arm right where I was going to put the anchor tattoo.  No, I really wasn't.  As far as you know.  I should have the pathology results next week sometime.

After Deb's appointment we walked over to the Frye Museum for lunch, hoping to see the current exhibit first.  Except that there isn't a current exhibit.  There is a new exhibit being installed that will open on Friday evening, but only five visible works right now.  But we did enjoy lunch.

The trip home included a stop to pick up Deb's new contact lenses (now that she's cut back on the narcotics enough that she can focus again ... kidding ... maybe).  I also stopped in at a drug store for some vaseline for Deb's wound care.  But that was it.  We're home now, Deb is lightly snoozing in her recliner, and Betty the dog is heavily snoozing on her bed next to Deb.  Seems like a good plan for her afternoon.