Back in Devil Monkey Laboratories. Finally.
Foot is doing well enough that I can climb the stairs again. Not often, but with my meds being on track I’m not running up and down the stairs to the bathroom every half hour either. You’d be amazed how tired growing back a chunk of meat that size wipes you out. That said, I’ve gone from “maybe I’ll go downstairs and grab something and then go lie down” to “as long as I’m not running up and down every half hour I’m OK.”
Speaking of meds, I’m done with the antibiotics. Took the last dose a week ago. Which is great because apparently the stuff they had me on can seriously screw up your blood if you take them more than three weeks. The usual duration is two or three weeks. They had me taking them for three. They’re also so rarely prescribed the pharmacy specialist I see for my other meds said he hadn’t ever seen someone on them in his entire career and until that morning had known he never would.
The pain level has dropped significantly too. Which is also part of being able to use the stairs. It’s gone from a constant ache with flare-ups requiring Vicodin to take the edge off to a constant ache with flare-ups when the nurses change the dressing. I think I took a Vicodin on Monday after the nurse was here.
Makes sense though. That dressing isn’t gauze and a wrap. It’s foam and basically cargo tape that forms a vacuum-seal around the wound. In order to make it work properly, that means most of my foot is wrapped in cargo tape. To make it really stick, they put this special skin-prep substance on it that basically glues it down.
So when they take it off, they’re peeling cargo tape that’s been glued to my skin off most of my foot, with the wound itself having a piece of foam pulled off it. That part sticks just enough that they have to spray it with medical cleanser to make it let go.
And then it bleeds. That’s a good thing though, because it means I have decent circulation there, so my toe isn’t in as much danger of having to be chopped off as the doctors had been worried about. Which is why I have the wound-vac in the first place. It’s expensive, but between what the vac itself does and having a wound care nurse take a good look at it three times a week we’ll know almost immediately if there’s a problem. Worst case, something starts on Friday after it gets looked at and they spot it on Monday.
Next week I find out when the wound-vac comes off and when the meat should grow back enough that I can go back to the robot factory. As of a couple weeks ago, I’m “incapacitated” until 7 September. Exact word used by the podiatrist overseeing this ordeal. Good dude, knows his stuff, doesn’t do Minnesota Nice. Apparently some people dislike that about him, but I’m a big fan of House. Tell it to me straight, Doc. I’ve been seeing him off and on for over a year now; he was the podiatry consult they called in for my leg infection last year. Urgent Care called him in to be safe, he looked at it, and said something to the effect of “yep, that’s cellulitis. Do X, Y, and Z.” No sugarcoating, no screwing around, diagnosis and treatment suggestion, now let me get back to my other patients.
As it should be.
And by “big fan of House,” aside from the field I’m creepily close to being him already.
- Walk with a cane because of some leg/foot problems? Check.
- Well-versed in a specific type of diagnosis/troubleshooting? Check.
- Autodidactic hobbyist polymath? Check.
- Loves a good Reuben? Check.
- Vicodin as the painkiller of choice? Check.
- Doesn’t particularly care about the feelings of proud, deliberate idiots? Have you met me?
- “People who know me see me as an ass, treat me as an ass. People who don’t know me see a cripple, treat me like a cripple.” Check.
In the meantime, I’m back to my classes and asset work. My desktop is far superior to my laptop in pretty much every way except portability. Which means I can get back to doing more than making lists and admin stuff. Yeah, I’ve managed to do some basic 3D models, but I’ve had enough crashes to make that a borderline fool’s errand.
And I started a new project for Devil Monkey Games. I’m doing the announcement for that on 24 August. Doing the official announcement then so it will hopefully go along with some early-stage pictures. Teaser: every RPG has this in it, and it’s going to involve a lot of reusable assets.
It also means Beentz is back to her favorite activity: harassing her buddy while he tries to get stuff done. She’s been a good little kitty throughout this adventure. With me effectively chained to the bed for a week, she spent a good chunk of it curled up on the bed keeping me company. Once I had a workstation set up in the living room, she camped out on the couch across from me to keep an eye on me.
With me back in my office she comes downstairs, gets up on her hind legs and starts smacking me in the arm and yelling until I reach down and pet her.
Speaking of critters, Finn has been hanging around with me and checking on me periodically to make sure I’m OK. If I’m lying down he does a patrol of the house, sticks his head in the bedroom door to check on me, then continues on his patrol. And he has shown almost zero interest in my foot. He sniffs it when the nurses do the dressing change, but I’m almost certain that’s because he’s checking to see why I’m bleeding – he’s worried about why he suddenly smells my blood. Considering how dogs have been known to sniff out infection, I’ll take that as a good sign.
So yeah, life at home is starting to get vaguely back to normal. Baby steps, but so far they’re in the right direction. Based on what the doctors were saying in the hostibule, it sounds like the baby steps might be followed by a big gorram step once the meat grows back to a certain tipping point and the skin cells can raise their wee little fists and scream “the day is mine!” before moving in to cover up the giant hole. It’s already started to some degree, but at least measurement it was still 3.5cm x 1.4cm open.