Bandage Change

March 16, 2010

Last week after Addi had her bandage changed while under sedation, we were given strict instructions not to touch the bandage - meaning DO NOT unwrap that leg. We made our appointments for the wound clinic to change the bandage for the next week, with the doctor taking a quick peek.

She, of course, fell asleep on the way up, and was out. Didn't even stir when we moved her. The wound nurse was so sweet, trying to let her sleep as long as possible. She must have known that she was in for a treat!


Finally, the doctor was on his way over from his clinic, so it was time to wake the beast and get that leg unwrapped. As soon as we moved her over to the exam bed and started messing with her leg, Addi woke up and started squirming. By the time the ace bandages came off, the squirming turned into full screaming. Which got louder the more bandage came off. Finally, when there were no bandages left, the screaming was continuing, and Addi had started to kick. She was in pain.

We have a child-life specialist that comes in and plays with Addi while they are doing things like this. The poor specialist pulled out every trick that she had, the toys that Addi usually likes, the ones she hadn't seen before, the tried and true bubbles, all to no avail. The screaming continued, getting louder as time passed.

The doctor came in and looked the leg over, noticed the horrible smell coming from her bandages (it just smells like decay - there are no other words to describe it), and asked how many times we had changed the bandage since last week...Umm...none, on your orders. I love that question. He then gave the instructions to the wound nurse to clean both areas well, completely cover it with neosporin, and bandage it back up. He then asked us to change the bandage everyday, so that the smell would stay gone, and heal cleanly. No problem, except that taking that bandage off just made her scream like we were killing her. The nurse and doctor both left the room, and a student nurse came in to observe. I was sitting on the table, Will was trying to keep Addi's legs still. I noticed a staple at the bottom of her new skin...one that should have been removed last week, but they get missed sometimes.

The nurse came back in, I showed her the staple, and she left the room again to check with the doctor. She came back a few minutes later with the special scissors that they use to take staples out. She then proceeded to completely cover both areas of her leg with neosporin and the oil emulsion gauze, then regular gauze.

Addi's old ace bandages were pretty stinky, and dirty, so we asked the nurse if we could have new ones put on. She, of course, hadn't brought any with her, so she had to run back to the office to get some. The child-life specialist left also to get different toys. While they were gone, I put Addi on my lap and tried to calm her down, which she started to do, to a point, but was still squirming a bit, which I assumed was from pain. Wrong! All of the sudden, my lap got warm and wet. You guessed it, she needed to go to the bathroom, but was in too much pain to tell me so that I could understand. So, there we were, Will and I trying to clean up, and the poor student nurse, not knowing what to do (I think she may be rethinking her choice of career fields at this point.). The child-life specialist peeked in, saw our dilema and said she would be right back with clean clothes for both of us. I didn't really care about me, but Addi was soaked and couldn't leave with nothing at all on. While we were taking her wet clothes off, I noticed that, you guessed it, the bandages were wet. So all of the work that had been done over the last hour was wasted. We had to start all over. The nurse came back in, saw our predicament, said "That sucks." and left to get some things to clean up the mess and start over. I'm sure she has kids.

So, after a greuling work-out holding Addi down, cleaning up an exam room, getting a t-shirt for Addi and a pair of sweats for me, we were finally ready to go home. Addi was much calmer once we got those ace bandages on her leg, and we knew she was completely calm when Will picked her up and got a look with the additude of "Seriously?" coming from her mouth.

We did have to make a stop at the give shop to get her a balloon, and at that point, I probably would have given her anything that she asked for. Poor kid. Hopefully, changing bandages at home won't be so traumatic for her and we can all make it.

And now for the pictures (again, they may not be pretty for those that don't like this stuff):



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Before, I said that I thought they had taken skin from off of her bum cheek, but I was wrong. They just had her taped up that far to keep the bandage in place. It's not nearly as bit of an area as I thought, but still pretty big.