Legging it out over Thanksgiving weekend

Those of you who read my column on a regular basis (I know there’s a least a couple of you) may remember that last week I wrote about how confusing the past couple of weeks had been for me with a couple of stat holidays and the station going to a new schedule and me being my usual “I have no idea what’s happening” self.

If I had known what LAST week was going to be like, I would have held off on that column. Let’s start at the beginning (a trick I learned from my newspaper days).

Last Sunday, Mom and I went out to my sister and brother-in-law’s for Thanksgiving dinner, and a good time was had by all. On Monday, which was actually Thanksgiving, I was over at Mom’s in the afternoon, and as I went to leave, I felt a strange object on the back of my right leg.

A quick examination revealed a very thinly skinned mound of what looked to be some kind of fluid. I determined this was not something I wanted to have bursting in my car or my apartment, so I headed down to the hospital.

I checked in at Emergency and gave them all my information while they checked my vital signs and made sure I was still breathing, and likely to remain that way for at least a while.

When my turn came to be further examined, the doctor determined it was an abscess, went and got a small mat, and then punctured it. From the looks of it, I had expected a tidal wave of fluid to gush out, covering the entire floor of the room.

Nope. A bit of fluid and that was about it. She put a fairly large dressing on it, advised me to call my doctor first thing Tuesday to get one of my blood pressure prescriptions started up again, and gave me a second bandage and tape if I needed to replace the original one.

Tuesday afternoon, it felt like the bandage was starting to leak, so I decided to replace it.

Big mistake.

As I peeled the bandage off, a thin layer of skin came with it, leaving a rather nasty-looking red blotch across the back of the leg. I put the big bandage on as best I could, taped it down, then found a couple of other bandages to at least cover up some of the other exposed wound.

Wednesday, I was at Mom’s again, and she, I and my sister decided it needed replacing again (even though we didn’t have any more big bandages).

Six bandages, three pieces of gauze and about 10 yards of tape later, we decided that would do.

To the surprise of no one (I assume), by Thursday it was hurting again, so this time I went back into emergency.

It turned out to be the same doctor on duty who had seen me Monday. When she saw the wound, my only comment was, “This is what happens when amateurs try to imitate professionals.”

The wound is still there, but the pain has decreased markedly. This week, I’m scheduled to see a couple of doctors about different aspects of the cure.

The best thing so far, from my viewpoint, is that even though it’s a leg injury on an older person, at no point did anyone suggest putting me down.