Scraped her shin (Tue, 22 Feb, 2011)

(Warning: this is gruesome!) Last Sunday mom was up at her shed putting some garbage in her "inside the shed" garbage can. When she stepped down (backwards of course, that's how you do it!), she accidentally scraped the front of her shin along the edge of the wooden step. Her skin is so fragile that she scraped up a big flap of skin, about 4 inches long and an inch wide, and her blood is so thin from the Coumadin that it bled like mad.

She didn't have any sterile gauze pads, so she improvised by folding up a bunch of paper towels, and she didn't have any adhesive tape so she improvised by using brown wrapping tape plus a couple of cling bandages plus an Ace bandage. She said, "It was a pretty cute looking thing, I'll tell you!" And she also said, "What kind of a nurse doesn't have gauze pads or adhesive tape in the house??"

Her guardian angel neighbors came to her rescue again. The Wound Clinic that cured her last shin sore requires a referral from a primary care physician, so her neighbor called Dr. Kim's office in Medford and had them fax the referral to her. Then she faxed the referral to the wound clinic and got mom an appointment for 10am today. (The doctor comes up from Lakeview, and is only in Klamath on Tuesdays and Saturdays.) Then her neighbor drove mom into town in her Explorer.

The doctor at the wound clinic used a Lidocaine spray to anesthetize the wound before she worked on it, which mom really liked. (The other wound clinic at the hospital used to give her a very painful injection.) Then the doc cleaned up the wound, spread on some yellowish antibiotic ointment, wrapped it up, and informed mom, "That right leg is now MINE, not yours. Take it easy and try to stay off it. Do not get it wet! And if you do, call me and I will come over from Lakeview and re-do the wrap!"

Mom was worried about tetanus, because she was thinking about the raccoons and squirrels and other critters that frequent the steps of the shed, so the doc called the doctor's office downstairs from the wound clinic and they told her to send mom right down. Mom loved the doctor's office, because they had a mother bulldog and her 5-month-old puppy in there! The nurse took one look at mom's teeny skinny little arm and said that she would have to get a smaller needle, and then she gave mom her tetanus shot.

When they left, they went to Safeway and she waited in the car while her neighbor did her shopping, then he delivered her back home. Such wonderful people. Mom said she told them that she is glad that they are her adopted kids. As for me, I am extremely grateful that my "adopted siblings" take such good care of her!

After all that activity earlier in the day, mom then proceeded to have a nosebleed this afternoon. I asked her if her Coumadin was out of whack, but she said that for the past two weeks it has been right in the middle of the normal range. I asked what caused the nosebleed and she said that she has a vein in one side of her nose "...that has been giving me trouble when I blow my nose." Seems weird to me if her Coumadin level is good, but ...?

Mom said that the shin wound has been feeling like a 3rd degree burn for the past few days, and the doc at the wound clinic told her that she's had very good results with benadryl. Apparently there is an inflammatory response in the wound and benadryl calms it down. But she told mom not to take it until she is ready to get into bed for the night because it will definitely knock her out. Mom is looking forward to that tonight, because her leg has been keeping her awake since Sunday.

Lastly, I talked to her again about hospice care. The nurse at KF Hospice said that she would be happy to come out to RP at any time and tell mom about it and answer any questions, so I asked if she'd be interested. But she said that even if the nurse came out to do her blood draws, she would still have to go into town to see Kubac to balance her various meds, so mom didn't see any point. She also said that she has a person to do her house cleaning, so she didn't think hospice is necessary right now. I said OK, well then we will table it for now.