Ever heard of 'debriding'? Me neither before today. Its where foreign tissue, in this case the scar tissue, is removed to allow the healthy tissue to repair. So basically, Adele(the doctor) took to my foot with a scalpel and forceps! Now I consider myself to have a pretty strong stomach (when I almost ripped my finger off in 2007 I was the one digging round in the wound to get the remaining bits of chaff out) but I was struggling this morning. I can't really explain it, but I have this kind of relationship with my legs now. They are kind of like my babies, I'm kind of detached from them, but I still feel very protective of them. So to watch someone sticking a scalpel blade into them actually made me feel, not queasy, but really uncomfortable.
The other thing I found really difficult to deal with is that I could feel it! It didn't hurt, but I could feel where she was doing it. The pins and needles in my feet were going so crazy! And when she got into the deep bit, it sent spasms all the way up into my stomach. (So if nothing else, my abs will benefit.) It was a rather strange experience... Adele was happy with my left foot and the hole in my breast, but she was concerned (as was I) with the lack of blood flow when she finished debriding my foot. When you cut away that much tissue, there should be a fair bit of blood flow. My foot was hardly bleeding at all. The only bit that has reasonable blood flow was around the back of my foot, which is where it has started healing.
Adele has also changed the dressings from twice daily to some silver stuff underneath to stop infection, with a waterproof dressing over top, not to be changed for seven days. I don't mind not having to change it every day, but I will admit leaving it that long does make me nervous. I am still on antibiotics (cut back to one a day as of tomorrow) so I'm not really too worried about infection, but to go a week without monitoring it is a bit scary, since that's the only way for me to know how its going with this whole lack of feeling thing. Leap of faith. She has also put that silver stuff on my boob, which is still healing well, with good circulation.
I asked about pain relief, if there was any benefit if I couldn't really feel it, and Adele didn't think so. I am wondering though, since my body's reaction to the pain is confusing my normal signals. I keep thinking I need to go to the toilet, but its just my body reacting to the pain in my feet. So if it doesn't settle down in the next day or two I may have to revisit the issue.
After the doctors, I went down to the shops to get a postcard for my brother Hayden. He is staying in town while mum are dad are away, so I'm trying to keep him in the loop.
This afternoon Anne, Jon, Peter and I (Bill and Kathy's kids) headed out to the main property, Cattle Creek with Bill. Dad, Ellie and I spent a lot of time at Cattle Creek in 2006, mustering, watering cattle and doing general maintenance. It was like going back in time going back there. Very little has changed. It was amazing the memories that came flooding back! Driving down the lane we went past the spot I first shot a rifle, doing target practise with Dad, Scotty and Ellie beside the lane. And just for the record, I shot with amazing accuracy!
Driving into the yards, I saw the hold em yards, made up of old cars on their sides, as it has ben since Dad worked there before long before he was a dad.
While I was working for Bill one of the many things I learnt to do was trap pigs. His eldest son Scotty used to build and set traps for the feral pigs, then sell them for meat. He taught me how to build them (I built one at another one of their properties, Quakit) and I would go round checking the traps every day or two with him. We caught quite a few on Cattle Creek while I was up here.
Bill was off to clear the suckers (young trees) off the grazing paddocks this afternoon on a Styger, a tractor so big the wheels are taller than the average man. Even watching him fill the tractor up with diesel reminded me of things I'd long forgotten, like pumping diesel from 44 gallon drums with a crank handle when I was sewing paddocks as big as my parents entire farm.
Here's a funny story for you. Another skill I have. I can drive a bull dozer. Ok, so I probably can't anymore, even if I could get on one, but I did know how to once! anyway, Dad and I, and maybe Scotty, were out at Quakit one day and I had to move dozer from the back of the property to the cattle yards. Before I could do this, I had to fill it up with fuel and water. Now, before I admit this, I just want it noted that someone else put the 'water' cap on the wrong hole! As you can probably guess, I put water into the fuel tank. Fortunately, we realised my mistake before I turned it on and blew it up. Dad was rather unimpressed! Although not as unimpressed as Bill would have been had I blown up the dozer... That put our day back a good couple of hours by the time we found more water. All in a days work!
Dad used to always tell us these stories about Bill When we were growing up. I remember him telling us how Bill lost a saddle once. He couldn't find it anywhere! Then, three days later, it turned up. When the horse he'd been riding came back to the house, still wearing it! Looking round the yard today I was thinking I could write a book on the man!
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| My sticky wheels |
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| The 'track' to the mud hole |
Anne had to go fix a busted pipe (that Bill ran over) this afternoon. It was only a few hundred meters from the car, so I decided to just push over. Now, on the track, this was a good plan. But the broken pipe was off the track. Me being me, I kept going, very slowly... We got to a bit of a damp spot and I kept going, forgetting just how sticky that black soil is. What made me think that my chair could handle what trucks, four wheel drive vehicles and bikes couldn't, I don't know! I didn't get bogged, just cover in mud. Sticky, claggy mud. At this point, I sent Jon for the land cruiser. I may have been a little overambitious.... At least, as Anne said, I didn't just give up. Although, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I did in some situations...
Well, I'm off to the Theodore pub tonight to catch up with my friend Steve, who lives down the road from here. I saw my first state of origin game in that pub, looking forward to going back.
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