Connie foot photo #11

When the nurse, Michele,  removed the bandage on the foot yesterday she and I did a double take.  It was different then I had seen it with white stuff showing, some redness, and the two areas larger then last time, yet healthier looking.  It was odd.  Connie informed us that her home health nurse had looked in it with a flashlight and reported it was tissue, but the "good kind of tissue", whatever that meant.  We left it for the Foot God.

He arrived with a Shadow, a man who smiled and stood behind him the entire time.  The Foot God did not introduce us and the shadow did not speak.  The Foot God sat down looked at the foot and asked, "Are you still on the IV antibiotic?  You have bone showing."  Apparently the white spot (to the right in photo) was bone.  The Foot God seemed unaffected by this and spoke into his intercom the room number we were in and immediately (as it has been all along) the door opened and nurse Kelly appeared as if standing at attention outside.  He told her to bring the rongeur to which she responded, "Really?  Cool!"  Then she disappeared.

I immediately jumped up and went to peruse the bone that was showing.  In came nurse Kelly with the rongeur, which the Foot God informed me was used to cut bone.  I had him spell it for me and have since learned it is a French word meaning "gnawer" and that it is an instrument used to "gouge out" bone.  I thought it looked a tad like the clippers I use to pick and cut my finger and toe nails.

We,  nurse Kelly, the Shadow, and myself, stood behind the Foot God and watched as he stuck the rongeur into the hole in Connie's foot and cut the bone.  It sounded a lot like the clipping of a thick toenail.  He pulled it out, stuck it back in, and clipped some more bone.  By this time I was feeling some squeamishness from the sound and the thought of it all, but since the Foot God had his hands full and would not be able to catch me if I fainted, I sucked it up and looked at Connie who was very nonchalant.

The wound, of course, began to bleed and while he was deciding if he should stick the rongeur back in again I told him to stop cutting more holes in the damn wound already.  He finds me fascinating, I'm sure.  He stopped cutting and nurse Kelly left, and I sat back down again relieved.  The Foot God then began writing down in Connie's chart that he would like to find an apligraf to put on the wound.  Again I had to bring out the phone and asked for some spelling help.  He told us it was a foreskin that was used to help heal the wound and that he thought it would be a good option.  Connie and I wondered aloud who's penis this foreskin was coming from, and at that the Foot God bid us farewell, Shadow trailing, until next week, and nurse Michele returned to dress the foot.

Apligraf, which I found via my handy Iphone there in the office at www.apligraf.com, is a living, cell based product that helps promote healing of  foot ulcers. "It contains two types of cells – an outer layer of protective skin cells, and an inner layer of cells contained within collagen. Both types of cells contain substances similiar to those found in human skin."  I read this aloud to nurse Michele, who had never heard of it, and to Connie so that we would be knowledgeable for the next appointment.

I'm just hoping this cutting isn't going to set the wound back as it has in the past.  I have found that I can not think about the cutting of the bone or I get the "heebie jeebies".  I am also steering my daughter away from the podiatry field and toward the orthodontic field instead.