Continuity of Care

After burning my ankle in mid-January, I came home from the hospital at the end of January.  Since then my wound care has been done by the same nurse working every day but for eight days.  Five days missed when a nurse practitioner changed the orders to a stupid dressing that ripped part of the graft off during a dressing change and three clinic appointments. 

Today the nurse had to skip a day for having the flu.  She was going to come in the afternoon and rescheduled for tonight.  Then she called to check my willingness to trade off a dressing change for potentially getting sick.   We will meet again tomorrow.

The graft that is still there is doing great.  The lost part is doing fairly well on a relative basis.  There is still at least a week or two to go before it will be a closed wound.

I think some of her days are reasonably short working for 3 to 6 hours.  I know other days are quite long while doing complicated IV drug infusions for homebound patients. 

I appreciate continuity of care.  I don’t want to see her work herself into the ground though.  I had sensed from our first meeting that moderation was not her strong point.

I am grateful for high quality medical care at home that also brings supplies to treat my burn.