Wound Dressing Problems

I'm back home with Hannah again, so I can only give you second-hand reports. Apparently this morning while taking Heather off a bedpan (a joyous experience in and of itself) the nurses and aids accidently grabbed the piece of wound dressing covering Heather's lower back (they originally used 7 or 8 pieces of the dressing to cover her back. Each piece is about 6" X 12") and pulled it off. This whole endeavor was quite painful, but what made it worse is that she is now without a wound dressing on that lower portion of her back. In addition, one of the pieces on her shoulder slid up, so they took that one off too.

This means that Heather will need to have a new dressings put on to cover the bare parts of her back. The thought of having to go through that burning pain again is overwhelming to her. They won't do anything until tomorrow when she has a dressing change on her legs. They are thinking of trying a different kind of dressing, hoping it won't burn like the last one did. However, it is also lined with silver and will probably burn as well. The other problem is that the part of her back that is not covered now may be stuck to her bedding. We are hoping that, having had a few days to heal, the nerve endings won't be quite so sensitive and that she won't experience anywhere near the same kind of pain she did yesterday.

Other than that fun piece of news, she said that she is doing pretty well. She is still quite tired much of the time. In addition, with all of the narcotics she is taking, her bowels remain quite sluggish. The constipation makes her feel nauseated and uncomfortable.