Yesterday, Valentine’s Day, MW spent the entire day in bed. Alone. That’s because she’s under enforced bed rest. On orders of a Tissue Viability Nurse – a specialist in wound management – or TVN, for short.
MW’s pressure sore is getting on for three months old now and shows no sign of improving. In fact, it’s worsening. It’s being dressed daily by district nurses and has been assessed twice by the TVN. The next step is to have it vacuum-dressed. Which, I’m told, involves a suction machine taking out dead tissue. I know it’s to help but it’s a grisly thought at best
Up until about a month ago, I’ve been photographing the sore’s development since it began so that MW can see what’s happening. I mean, it is her body, after all. But it’s got to the point now where I can’t even bear to look when the nurses are dressing it. It’s about 50mm deep at its deepest part – or 2" for those of us brought up on a mixture of imperial and metric measurements. When a nurse says it’s nasty, that’s usually a fairly good sign that it’s not a pretty sight. There’s some infection in there too so MW’s taking her second course of antibiotics in a month. No more pictures. I – and we – will just have to take the nurses’ opinion for it.
The sore also affects MW’s MS symptoms. She gets even more tired than usual (if that were possible) and she feels the cold more keenly too. MW is supposed to spend no more than an hour in a chair at a time. Feeding MW her meals takes up pretty much all of that hour.
I’m aware that the dynamic of this blog has changed a little in the last few posts. This only reflects the reality of things over recent months. This is my only real place to moan. I don’t want to do it on Twitter as it gets boring to read. I know that – it gets boring to think without getting it out of me. And woe betide you if you “do Twitter wrong”.
Twitter was full of Valentine’s Day chatter yesterday – some bitter, some sweet. We don’t really go for Valentine’s Day anyway but yesterday really couldn’t have felt more like just a Friday.
A Husband For A Carer 