Have you ever tried to apply that bloody post-operative bandage stuff?
Tagedern, you need a blasted degree!
Now when you have an abdominal catheter surgically inserted in your belly it is any self-respecting nursing sister’s job to scare you into keeping it clean.
As we have the best in the business when it comes to PD (peritoneal dialysis) nurses, Sister A did her job and we were, well, paranoid in the extreme.
Back to these stupid (actually really cleaver, but you can see how I was feeling) post op bandage thingies. They are supposed to be like another layer of skin and make it possible to shower etc without getting water on your recovering wound.
This is even more important in Port Alfred, for all its many virtues the quality of the water in NOT one.
So, can you imagine trying to get a nice flat seal on your plaster when there is a coil of tube coming out of the belly.
Well, I’ll tell you, it is impossible!
So aside from it sticking back onto itself when I so much as breath I have the back-seat bandager getting his big sausage fingers in the way.
I can tell you that this led to an array of emotions.
“That’s it, I have had enough, even though you should lie flat and let me bandage you, you can do it yourself.”
“What do you mean leave you alone you will do it yourself? You need to lie back and not crunch your tummy muscles!”
“Well done us, we are getting there, at least we are in this together.”
So basically, the usual frustrations.
We had two weeks to get the catheter site healed up before heading off to Cape Town AGAIN.
This time it tied in with the kid’s holiday, so we decided to combine dialysis training with a family holiday…go big or go home right.
I could not face leaving the children for a week. So, with Oupa in tow to help watch the kids while we learned this dialysis malarkey, off we set for the Cape.
We rented a car big enough for the 6 of us and a self-catering unit we hardly managed to enjoy.
Then we armed Oupa with an itinerary of fun activities like trampoline parks and the aquarium.
We told Caleb to help navigate for Oupa who is more technically challenged with his phone than me.
And reminded the children to remember their manners and to tell Oupa when they were hungry or thirsty as he would likely forget to check.
Off we went for PD (peritoneal dialysis) training.
As we learned the hygiene protocol, which to avoid infection is paramount, I was thinking how much water, surgical soap and alcohol spray was needed. Not very drought or environmentally friendly but absolutely necessary.
Then looking at the amount of plastic, tubing and caps again I kept thinking about our carbon footprint…eek, just remember Cindy this is saving his life.
I started thinking about all the people on PD, this amazing life saving treatment and even here there is shadow and light.
Lives saved – Light
Environmentally – Shadow
Daunting as the whole process is we got through our training as fast as my wizard of a husband insisted we would.
He can be a force of nature when he set his mind on something. So in 3 days we had learned both the manual method and the machine method.
We were ready to enjoy a few days with the kids and cousins doing manual PD. Before heading home to start on our machine.
Boxes and boxes and boxes of PD bags, sets, caps, wash, alcohol spray, hand towels and Athena our PD machine loaded up with the courier, we were ready.
Or so we thought.
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