Back in October, I wrote about an injury to my reconstructed left leg that left a hole over my superior and inferior retinaculam (top of my foot, at the ankle), which revealed my tendon, sliding back and forth, as I moved my foot (shivers). As a necrotizing fasciitis survivor, one becomes something of a wound care specialist and, though I’ve gotten along treating myself for nearly 20 years, this one required more expertise than I have.
So, I visited my general practitioner to get a referral to a plastic surgeon, because I felt a graft may be required. But, the wound began coming together by that time and my GP was able to really help it out with some minor surgery in his office. After the removal of some hypertrophic tissue at the top of the wound, the skin was able to grow down to cover the ulcer.
Well, here we are a little more than four months after the initial injury and the wound has closed. Along the way, I learned a few important lessons from the fabulous staff at the Sierra Nevada Wound Care Center. This was the first time I’ve used silver gel extensively and another one of those amazing new medical marvels, the ionic silver gauze sponge. At the center, they treated me with a silver sponge, but those were a little pricey for me and I just used the sterile generic sponge dressing with silver gel at home.
Later, when the moisture was no longer degrading the ulcer, I switched back to my old friend, Xeroform. That petrolatum/bismuth impregnated gauze was so amazing on donor sites, when I was “essentially skinned alive from the tops of [my] toes to [my] chest” back in 1998 (the chilling post-op transcription by one of my surgeons, following my skin graft operations). On this wound, it provided a nice clean environment to grow skin. Back in the day, Xeroform cost about 10 times what it does now, so I’ve stocked up on my old friend and will use that, whenever my skin breaks down in the future.
Even though wound care gets tedious and is sometimes very depressing, I’m grateful to live in times when there are so many wonderful people to help and ingenious medical developments coming online.
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