Whoohoo! I'm beefsteak!
Jun. 24th, 2004 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kickahaLast night I had some increased seepage from my dressings over my shoulder...
In fact, it was downright a gusher. I have that pain pump catheter, and I thought maybe it had come out, and was just pumping fluid into the bandages, it was that wet. Also, I had some blood appearing at the bottom of the dressing, enough to seep through two layers of 4x4 gauze pads and tape.
As per![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ginkgo's suggestion, I put on a tshirt and placed a towel down before going to bed 'just in case'.
Well, I soaked through my tshirt, and the towel was pretty well full too. *Somehow* it didn't get into the couch. Color me shocked. So today I went in after PT and had the nurse take a look at it.
Catheter is still in, but the whole back of the dressing (which kind of looked like a small shoulder pad to begin with, including in size) was filled with blood. In fact, when she pulled it off, it smelled like the pad at the bottom of a package of old steak. (Hence the title. ;) )
So, she cleaned it up, and redressed it. There's a small puncture point next to the catheter at the top of the shoulder that was used to irrigate and inflate the joint with saline for the scope and tools, and the Steri-Strips came clean off. What the nurse thinks happened is that last night when I hit the infusion pump 4ml 'extra' bulb, I increased the pressure in the region enough to pop the Steri-Strips off of the hole that was (ta-da) keeping all the saline in. Gush. That in turn soaked everything and kept the blood from clotting, and allowing it to seep more.
But now it's dried out a bit, the dressing is quite a bit thinner (which means the ice water chiller is getting more cold to the joint, which feels better), and there were no signs of infection or other worrisome things.
I'll have it looked at again tomorrow, but so far so good.
In fact, it was downright a gusher. I have that pain pump catheter, and I thought maybe it had come out, and was just pumping fluid into the bandages, it was that wet. Also, I had some blood appearing at the bottom of the dressing, enough to seep through two layers of 4x4 gauze pads and tape.
As per
ginkgo's suggestion, I put on a tshirt and placed a towel down before going to bed 'just in case'.Well, I soaked through my tshirt, and the towel was pretty well full too. *Somehow* it didn't get into the couch. Color me shocked. So today I went in after PT and had the nurse take a look at it.
Catheter is still in, but the whole back of the dressing (which kind of looked like a small shoulder pad to begin with, including in size) was filled with blood. In fact, when she pulled it off, it smelled like the pad at the bottom of a package of old steak. (Hence the title. ;) )
So, she cleaned it up, and redressed it. There's a small puncture point next to the catheter at the top of the shoulder that was used to irrigate and inflate the joint with saline for the scope and tools, and the Steri-Strips came clean off. What the nurse thinks happened is that last night when I hit the infusion pump 4ml 'extra' bulb, I increased the pressure in the region enough to pop the Steri-Strips off of the hole that was (ta-da) keeping all the saline in. Gush. That in turn soaked everything and kept the blood from clotting, and allowing it to seep more.
But now it's dried out a bit, the dressing is quite a bit thinner (which means the ice water chiller is getting more cold to the joint, which feels better), and there were no signs of infection or other worrisome things.
I'll have it looked at again tomorrow, but so far so good.