The big bandage change just occurred. You never know what you're going to see when you take off a bandage.
I took care of a friend for a few months a long time ago who'd been gunshot. Yeah. It was a mugging with benefits. Really, I should not be joking. She could have died and came close to it. Anyway, her parents were nowhere around and for some reason I decided to take this girl in and take care of her, which I did. I used to be such a nice person. Now I feel highly philanthropic if I pick up the trash on Main Street which I did today, by the way. Damn but we have some trashy people here in Lloyd.
But I can remember doing wound care on that girl and how we both had to grit our teeth before we began. It was torture for her and the last thing in the world I want to do is hurt someone. But it had to be done. The wound had to be unpacked and irrigated, then repacked with gauze and so forth. We finally named the wound Ethyl. It just sounds so much friendlier to say, "Come on. Time to deal with Ethyl," than "Hey. Time for wound care."
And I know I did bandage changes on Miss May when she was recovering from being hit by a car. Broken bones and surgeries will lead to that but for the life of me, I can't remember doing it. I remember making her get up to take a bath and she almost passed out but thankfully our friend Emily came over and saved both our asses. Emily was an angel. I don't know why I made her get up to take a bath. I think that in my traumatized state of mind I just thought it would make her feel so much better to get all that blood out of our hair and so forth. To be clean. Perhaps I felt the need for her to undergo a rebirth of sorts. A purification. To rid her of as much of the accident as I could.
Whatever, it was faulty thinking and I'll never forgive myself for it.
What I mostly remember about May's recovery is being in bed with her and knitting while we watched Northern Exposure reruns. That was one of the sweetest times of my life. She still has the scarf I knit. It's a nice scarf.
So anyway, Miss Jessie got in the tub this morning (she wanted to!) before we did her bandages, with her leg over the side and I washed her hair for her. That, too, was a sweet moment. It feels so good to have someone wash your hair. And it felt so good to me, to have her precious head in my hands, to scrub and rub and make her smile with pleasure.
Then we got to it. I unwound the damn Ace bandage, not realizing it's one of those self-sticking ones and by god, I think I took a layer of skin off underneath her knee and it HURT her. Badly. Shit. We got the gauze pads off and the wounds look wonderful. No swelling at all, no signs of infection. But the whole thing was so traumatic and I guess the Ace bandage removal so painful that she got dizzy and light-headed.
I got her back to bed and cleaned the tiny incision sites with alcohol the way the instructions said and put two bandaids on and rubbed some aloe from the yard on the underside of her knee, gave her a Vicoden and a glass of juice, put the fan on her, a little bit of a cover, put the ice on her knee again and now she's asleep.
I called her daddy and said, "Yep. She's your child."
Mr. Moon is famous for passing out during bandage removal procedures. And when Mr. Moon passes out, it's like a tree has fallen in the forest. It's scary.
I've never personally passed out in my life but I've come close. The closest I ever came- okay. I do not want to tell the story but let me just say it was night, it was raining, I was on an interstate and I WAS DRIVING.
We all remember our first panic attack so fondly, don't we?
All right. That's that. And I'm going to go tend to the chicken house duties. Got my overalls on and I'm ready.
I hope y'all are having a great Friday and that no one has to rip any Ace bandages off your tender little knees and that if this does happen to you, you have a bottle of Vicoden to help with the pain.
Love....Ms. Moon
