Saturday or Sunday was probably the hardest times mentally as I really badly want to be getting out there and getting ready to race a race. I've decided though that unless I'm going to further an injury I'll be in Rev3 at the end of October. So that helps.
The week highlights go something like this.
Tuesday
I did get a better chair at work, and got another chair to prop my leg up. Walking doesn't make the leg better, actually worse.
Wednesday
My leg is feeling better, I'm able to walk around without so much limp. Near the end of the day I notice though that perhaps I've been taking a little too many liberties with my leg. The lower half feels mostly asleep. I head out to happy hour with some out of town co-workers. It's a late night, the walk back to my car feels much longer than the walk in.
Thursday
The bottom half of my leg feels perma asleep. If I put it up it feels like it's waking up, but never fully gets there. I skip the 2nd scheduled happy hour as I am not too sure this new development is great. At home my wife says my leg is swollen, she calls the nurse line. Their verdict: go into Urgent Care. Apparently you can't tell the triage lady your leg is feeling numb, that gets you into ER. Oops. The doctor comes in, says the leg wound looks good, so it's not infection causing a problem, but it might be a clot has formed. Get an ultrasound, they give me the all clear. Home without incident. The doctor does recommend taking the tagaderm off to let the wound breath. It has been on for 7 days and shows no sign of coming off on it's own. The packaging says max of 7 days.
Friday
Work goes as planned, leg falls asleep again, it doesn't seem to matter what I do. The only time it doesn't feel like that is when I'm laying down. I try to take some of the tagaderm off from places that look healed up. Super painful. I head out to the drug store in search of a safe adhesive remover, a few hours later and no luck I return to try the manual method again. Eventually my wife comes in and helps me, much to my surprise is hurts much less if she does it. She heads to sleep after being exposed to gross open wounds, I let them air out for a while and then re-apply tagaderm in two places. Everything else is basically done.
Saturday
Skip renaissance festival to rest leg. Then I come down with the 24-hourish bug that's been going through our house. During the day I notice the wound on my elbow is draining a lot of fluid, it's leaking out from the tagaderm. Super nasty. Also it hurts to have your sensitive elbow stuck to the sheets due to dried body goo.
Sunday
Spend most of the morning in bed again mainly due to flu-y symptoms, 2 weeks of gimpy dad is starting to show signs on wear on my wife. She is such a trooper, apparently she had been sick during the week and didn't say anything, plus two sicks kids during the week. I start to move around the house, I can walk without limping, there is mild discomfort on the outside of my bum knee. We elect to take the tagaderm off my elbow, it's leaking all the time, we put some gauss on it to handle the flow of goo.
Monday
Take gauss off elbow wound in the shower, finish shower without it. Reapply band-aid, it's still leaking plenty. Leg feels very good, I feel like I can walk without a limp. Work goes well, the leg doesn't really bother me till work is almost done.
A quick evaluation of self:
- Leg - Hurts a little, at this rate I could see myself perhaps jogging mid-to-late next week. The noticeable wound has gone from clean with a bit of yellow in the middle (apparently normal) to what appears to be scabbing over slightly. If you're a runner it feels almost like IT-band pain.
- Elbow - A large deep opening still there, maybe as large as a quarter and probably deep enough to hold two. It's hard to imagine that healed up in the next couple of days. It's also sensitive to touch. The leaking tagaderm really irritated my skin, so there's a small amount of what I would describe as rash from that mess.
- Arm - Mostly healed up, the scabs are being held in place by arm hairs, so they just sort of flake off throughout the day. There is a noticeable scrape though that looks raised, likely a small scar (2 or 3 inches long.) It's a little sensitive to touch. My muscles are feeling much better, no more soreness or stiffness.
- Forehead - The scab fell off this morning after the shower, you can see where the wound was, probably over time it will fade to nothing. It feels fine.
- Thumb - Looking pretty good, sensitive to touch, but getting easier to use it. I change the band-aid daily. Who knows how long it will take for the nail to grow back.
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| Where the head hole used to be |
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| Regular sized band-aid on my thumb. Also in view a small scab. |
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| Extra large band-aid on my arm |
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| Leg wound, under tagaderm. You can also see some mostly healed road-rash |
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| Back of my arm, everything but the line in the middle will eventually just flake off. Maybe by tomorrow or the next day |
The rest is gone. In some ways it feels like I've come a long way in two weeks. In some ways this two weeks seemed to drag on forever. In some ways five weeks seems right around the corner.
1 comment:
Well it's definitely less gross. So that's good. I had no idea what tagaderm looked like. But I wasn't expecting it to be see through. Those guys at 3m come up with crazy stuff. Maybe goobgone would help it come off. I'm kidding. Glad you are feeling better.
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