The Gang’s All Here and it’s Gangrene.
I had the staples for 5 weeks, was on antibiotics for 4 weeks and it’s been about 7 weeks since I’ve had the mastectomy.
I had a bizarre complication (breast tissue up to my neck!) which caused the surgeon to take a wee bit more skin than he would have liked.
This complication, in turn caused my incision to weep … and weep … and weep.
I thought to myself I’m such a leaky bitch 
But I digress …
The weepiness is due to gangrene … yuck!
So every day I have a nurse come in to change the dressings and show me the lovely green liquid coming out of my body.
Thanks, but I’ll pass on the green inspection Ms. Nurse. Oh and the drama between the nurses! One nurse says the other nurse should be doing one thing and the other nurse whines about something else … geez, I’m just the patient … I’ve got enough stress in my life without having to worry that the nurses are battling each other and may not be getting my care right.
As one nurse says, do you hear me?
I still haven’t really looked at my breastless chest yet … but I’ll save that discussion for the shrink.
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Here I am almost 9 weeks after surgery and I still have a nurse from Bayshore come to see me every day to change the dressings due to the gangrene.
It’s never-ending … and I’m becoming quite agitated that I have to put my daily life on hold because I never know what time the nurse will call.
I can’t plan weekends with friends, visits with friends, lunch dates, etc. All I can hope is that my friends don’t forget me and want to come and visit me while I’m recovering [oh, pity me!].
I still don’t have full use of my arm (it’s about 90% better) so I only drive to get groceries and only drive on back streets in case I need to manouvre quickly for any reason, and don’t want to be in an accident nor be the cause of one.
I get a call yesterday (April 7th) from the nurse saying that my case manager at CCAC wants to know why I’m not going to their clinic. I looked up the location of their clinic and it would be a 20 minute drive on the highway, and that’s one way.
I’m thinking to myself, man, they are fucking idiots!
The surgeon’s written orders over the last 2 months has been daily visits to my home.
My guess is that CCAC tries very hard to get people to go to the clinics so they can save money on their budget … and the fact that most poeple on home care would rather be self-sufficient and not have home care is lost on their puny minds … and that the Government of Ontario promised that early discharge from a hospital does not mean they will abandon patients.
I think CCAC’s mandate is exactly the opposite: get people off home care and abandon them as early as possible.
Comment by CancerSurvivor — April 8, 2009 @ 12:29 PM