I always have one or more animal near me at all times. I have 2 cats and a dog and they all want to be near me. In the winter months our youngest cat prefers to be on my body sucking up my natural menopausal heat. My big gnarly black cat is my BFF if it's time to eat or the bowl is low on food. My dog, a boxer pit bull mix, loves taking naps with me and greeting me first thing in the morning. One day in mid July (2012) I was napping and had the little cat under the covers softly purring and nestled against my chest. The dog decided that she would not miss the nap and started to jump up on the bed. She grazed my left leg and scratched it. It healed and life went on. Two weeks later it was time to clip the cats' toenails. The little one, we caller her kitten tater (kitten for short) hates having her claws trimmed. It literally takes 3 people to clip her nails. One this particular day, we did our big cat first. As one son walked closer to me with Kitten she started wiggling and squeaking and so I said to let her go. My son dropped her and she used my leg as an escape ramp!
Because I have stage three kidney disease I have some extreme edema issues made worse by the fact that I am 90% immobile. Even worse is my immune system has been taxed for so long that now it is not able to protect me from such minor things as cat scratches. This combination makes it possible for my legs to literally leak. I would describe it as a pore crying. In July my leg leaked 24/7 and the the biggest wound leaked down to a smaller wound which then became bigger. My PCP put me on a round of antibiotics which was not helping so he tossed my ass into the hospital. Side note: a year prior I was in the same hospital almost dead from pneumonia I didn't know I had! This time I spent only 3 days in the hospital under close observation and IV antibiotics. I developed what I refer to as a good crust on all of the wounds (what had started out as one tiny scratch turned into 4 new and disturbing additional wounds). I was sent home with oral antibiotics and approx. 4 days after I completed the round my leg started weeping again! I had an in home nurse coming, almost daily trips to the doctor and nothing worked. The leg kept getting worse and I did not want to go back to the hospital-- so he sent me to a wound care center. Cleaned the wound, actually reopened some of the places that had started to crust over again. I had to endure, to put in mildly, a barbaric test that required my ankles to be fit with blood pressure cuffs to assess the "flow" in my body.....might not seem barbaric until you realize that the left ankle has an open, stinging, burning wound. Yes, lets squeeze the cuff to 200+ on this open sore and see if her veins work properly?! Any way my veins work great, heart is strong as ever so we moved forward to compression on both legs.
I have each leg wrapped from just above the toes to just at the back of my knee. I am taking 40 mg of Lasix twice daily to help the compression and rid my legs of all the water they carry. This combination seems to be working because I've lost 20 pounds, more than likely all water weight. When I look at the wound each time the wrapping comes off it looks so gross but they say I am making new cells and healing. This is great news! Well, there you have it.....a 5 month ordeal that thankfully is coming to an end!
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