Gangrene

A short update on my wound. I had been treating it with dettol and wrapping it with cotton wool for the first few days. (I didn’t have gauze bandages). And I knew that the cotton wool was sticking to the wound, and I knew that I had to cut it when I took it off. So when after a few days, when the wound seemed to dry up, I stopped putting on the dressing. However something wasn’t right: why is my wound yellow?

I went exercising this week, shortened my run to 5km, although I think I would eventually manage my normal 10k. Then I went for my first swim in months, which means that I would have been soaking that wound there for 1 hour. I thought, I guess there’s a bit of cotton wool there from 1 week ago, so let’s see about that. To my surprise, I managed to rip off a whole layer of cotton wool. It wasn’t pure cotton wool, but it had fused with the clotted blood. And I guess the cotton wool was choking the whole thing, and responsible for there being a small quantity of sticky pus around that area. Underneath was some fresh pinkish flesh which fortunately grew underneath that muck. But no wonder there's so much pus. No wonder it hurt when I try to move my leg. (cotton wool impeding the motion of the knee and scraping the wound.)

Well not too bad. But imagine – I could have been fostering the growth of gangrene all tha time. Yuck.

Next day at work, I make the colossal mistake of not protecting the wound while wearing long pants over it. By the evening the constant abrasion of cotton / polyester pants over raw newly grown flesh has become a sensation somewhat akin to fingernails on the chalkboard. I was forced to walk home with 1 leg of my pants rolled up, inviting stares from all the people I pass. (Note to self: it seems very difficult for people to stare at a person without that person noticing. I will keep this in mind next time a lady with big breasts walks by.) What a pain it was.