Rehab Week 4: Waiting for Godot

Yep, another week in paradise! Still on the inside wondering if it will ever end. While I’m not a Beckett fan, nor profess to really get what his plays are about, I sometimes wonder if there is anything out that window…. (OK, so I’m getting my plays mixed up, call it poetic license).

This week marked my 3-month anniversary inside the hospital.

OK, it’s not all that bad. Last week I talked about the new hole in my leg and the infection. On Monday this week, a new dressing was fitted – a vacuum dressing. It’s a seal put over your wound and hooked up to a vacuum pump that keeps sucking away. Along with some special foam-like dressing inside and around the wound, it drags out the bad stuff and encourages new flesh to grow. The downside is I am now hooked up to a machine via a hose and mobility is much more limited again. I have been on vacuum dressing before but that was when I was far less cogent and when the docs were trying to save my leg.

My first progress check was on Thursday when the wound dressing was changed. Good news – the wound had halved in size since Monday (the previous week it had hardly changed at all). It was also nice and clean. Tick one to the vacuum dressing. It also enabled the nurse to shave a little more hair from the leg around the wound - ripping off the op-site dressings frm a hairy leg ain't fun! Yeah - that's right - my legs are hairy again. Yuk!!

Other signs, blood pressure, temperature, pain have all been steady and good and blood test infection markers are low, so it looks as though I have the infection in check at least, if not beaten. I’m still on the IV and oral antibiotics though, presumably until the wound heals. How long? Who knows.

Next check of wound is Monday, so will be really keen to see if progress has continued.

Otherwise all is OK and watching Le Tour is a great distraction.

Ride safe