So It Goes

Today, I can tell you that if you have a mark with an uneven colour, that if is scaly or ulcerated or has a smudgy outline, you need to have it looked at.  

I also know that garbled speech, a change in mental ability and double vision could be warning signs of a stroke.

I know the importance of hygiene, of gloving up.   I know where the vomit bags are kept.  I know which buttons raise and lower the treatment bed.

That’s what happens when you become a bit of a fixture in your local doctor’s treatment room.  There are lots of posters to read and repetition builds memory whether you want it to or not.

I am not sure whether it a good thing when the receptionist knows your name and simply points to the nurse’s area when you arrive at the surgery?  And as you sit there, noting that one of the girls is having a birthday, another is a bit tired and another is coping with computer issues, you realise that you could write a television mini drama on the goings on of this happy surgery.  (I did suggest to one a Masterchef idea where dressings had to be changed in record time.)

The nurses will tell you they are family and you can see it.  This is a family you are happy to be a part of, albeit for a time.  This may be a place where sick people come, but the nurse’s bubbly personalities make it a happy place in which to recover. For this little while, you feel swept up in this family scenario, like a long lost relative or foster child.

Certainly, you have almost become that helpless child, willing to have your wounds tended, top off, eyes squeezed shut, trusting, trusting.  I had picked up an infection (pseudomonis aeruginosa) while having surgery and its insidious attack and slow cure has been the focus of my last few months.  It has meant constant dressings, from twice daily, to every third day with silver dressings, to now.  Right now, there are two wounds remaining.  They are small but deep, and I usually negotiate an end date every time I have them packed.  

Now in the third month, the end is in sight. Meanwhile, I get to hang with my new family just a tiny bit longer.

- Linda Muller