Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Pouring Salt in the Wound

I finally consulted a medical pro about the wound on my leg -- two and a half weeks after the incident. What was a scrape had developed into a big, black scab. Plus I was pretty sure I needed an antibiotic.

The med pro tap, tap, tapped on the scab and then told me healing would be a process. I freaked a little. When Captain Crab was a medic in the service, he worked in a burn unit for a time. He told me about their process, in which they let saline soaked gauze dry on burns. Then they ripped the gauze off, tearing away the damaged skin. I wanted to tell my med pro that I preferred to be unconscious during the process.

Luckily, my process was much less painful. Wash the wound with canned sterile saline, pat dry, protect the good skin by dabbing with vaseline, apply skin eating cream to the black scab and cover with gauze pad, twice a day. I went to the drug store and got my scripts filled and stocked up on the incidentals, buying the ONLY can of sterile saline.

Days later I went on a search for more canned saline. Wally World (which sucks, btw) was out of it. Target had cans that were half the size as the first one I bought at the same price. Five bucks for 3.1 ounces of salt water? (No, for the CAN.)

I had my process checkup a week later and mentioned to my med pro that the price of the sterile saline was ridiculous. She told me that I could just make my own and she would write down the recipe for me. She came back with a note pad and wrote:
1 cup water
1/3 tsp. salt

She told me I could double it if I wanted.

I told her I was pretty good with recipes and would figure it out.

4 comments:

H said...

good luck with that.

Hannita said...

how are the treatments going? i think i would be nervous putting something on me that is supposed to eat away at part of my flesh, albeit dead. ooh! also? it reminds me of the scene in gladiator when the maggots are eating away at that wound. i probably shouldn't put that imagery in your head. sorry.

pj said...

Treatments are going slow. I would like to wear shorts and do a good job of shaving my legs, but my legs remain hairy and white. The flesh eating cream doesn't work as fast as a nice bunch of maggots, which I did consider.

Thanks for asking!

Anonymous said...

So.... Are u all healed up now? Did it work? Tell us more please if you are still around.