High Levels of Exudate

     As I do every week, I remind my various coworkers that I need to leave early, and once again when two o’clock arrives I have to call over the radio to have someone relieve me. Two of them eventually arrive simultaneously, and while I know it’s not the end of the world, and that I will most likely make it to my bus on time, today I feel something snap inside and I am blinded by rage. 

    I don’t show it, though. I just clock out and speed down to the bus mall. 

    An old woman gets on the bus and sits across the aisle from me. Out of her left sleeve sticks a metal claw. Unlike last week’s unlucky fellow passenger, this woman’s misfortune does not make me feel better about my own. My foot looks like shit and my blood sugar, which has been well-controlled lately, has suddenly zigzagged out of control this week for reasons I can’t figure out. I try to use the training I practice in meditating to stop myself from worrying about this, but my thoughts fly to stress like nails toward a powerful magnet. 

In the waiting area, I feel myself sinking further, and I am too tired to fight it. By the time Shelley throws the door open, I have no energy for niceties. Warm, gentle Jenny is once again waiting for me in the middle room but I just grunt hello and collapse into the wide chair. 

    Vicki had ordered my medical supplies from a company that first calls you, then makes you pay in advance before they ship your order, so unsurprisingly my stuff didn’t arrive until yesterday. When I opened the package I was surprised to find that it contained nothing but a single box of ten foam dressings called Zetuvit Plus Silicone Border. There were detailed diagrams on the outside of the box, and inside was a set of instructions, microscopically printed in sixteen different languages on a thick sheaf of onionskin Though they are basically just fancy Band-aids, requiring you to just peel off the backing and slap them on, the instructions are astonishingly thorough and feature ten headings including Intended Purpose, Indications, Incident Reporting, Contraindications, and of course Product Disposal. 

    Zetuvit Plus Silicone Border absorbs and retains up to high levels of exudate in the absorbent pad and the dressing is able to redistribute pressure. It features a micro-adherent silicone interface and adhesive borders, so no other materials are necessary to secure the dressing.

    Maybe I missed some important step because when Shelley pulls off my sock, the bandage is bunched up and has slid half off the wound. Despite this, it doesn’t look much worse than last week. The foot looks slightly redder than usual though. Jenny asks if it hurts and I tell her yes. 

“That’s odd, you don’t usually feel much pain,” she says. 

    “How is it on a scale from one to ten?” asks Shelley. I tell her three and a half. They exchange looks and Shelley places her gloved hand over the end of my foot. “Temperature seems okay. It really is red though.”

    “Maybe it’s finally time to chop it off,” I say, and I mean it. Let’s end this charade. Let’s stop pretending this is ever going to get better. Time to shed that last scrap of loathsome hope. 

    Karen pops her head in and asks if she wants to see the latest videos of Dolly. I shrug and she shows me the dog wrestling with her doggie best friend, who looks exactly like her. I watch without comment. 

    “Isn’t she the cutest?” she gushes.

    They leave and I hear Dr. Bayliss’ voice on the other side of the curtain and my spirits dip further. I take off my glasses with one hand and cover my eyes with my other, which would be a lot trickier with a metal claw. A moment later the doctor comes in, followed by the new nurse whose name I’ve already forgotten. Helpfully, he name Judy is embroidered on her white coat.   

“So we’re still waiting to see if you can get permission from work to take off so we can put the cast on,” Bayliss says. 

““I don’t need permission, I just need two weeks’ notice so I don’t fuck them over.” Though I’m not sure why I’m worried about fucking them over at this point, when they can’t be bothered to even show up to relieve me even once. “I was waiting for you to call me.”

“Well I guess we had a misunderstanding,” she says, cutting away the callus as the new nurse watches intently. “Hmm, this is red, and a little swollen. I’m going to get you some antibiotics just to be on the safe side. Have you ever had MRSA?” Holy shit, I think, does she think I have MRSA? Why does she think that? I feel like I would know if I did. I tell her yes, I had it once. She tells Shelley to take a culture, and she digs a tube and a long cotton swab out of a drawer. 

“I can’t take any more of this,” I say, a little louder than I mean to. The room is very quiet. Vicki slips in for some reason, and they all stand there and stare at me; Jenny, Karen, Dr. Bayliss, Vicki, Shelley, Judy. I am so fucking sick of all of them. “It’s never going to heal up, and even if it does, it’ll just open right up again. This has been going on for years and there’s no fucking end in sight. I’m starting to lose it.” 

“What does your podiatrist say?" asks Bayliss. "If there’s a spur that keeps growing, they can sometimes shave it down.”

“I know. They've shaved it down so many times that it doesn’t help anymore. I'm not seeing a podiatrist at the moment because none of them seem to know anything. No one has an answer except to never walk on it again. It’s maddening that this is all just because of a tiny hole. I don’t want to do this anymore. Nothing helps. I'm done.”

“Are you thinking about… harming yourself?” the doctor asks. 

    I think about last night in the tub, using the opportunity to finally have my foot unwrapped to take a

rare bath. I kept closing my eyes and picturing that painting of Marat. He looks so serene.

    “No, nothing like that,” I say. 

“Your primary probably has a counselor who visits the office, or else he can write a referral to see a…”

“When am I supposed to see anyone when I’m already coming here every week?” I snap. “I don’t have any sick time left.”

    “Have you tried to get permanent disability?”

“Yes and I got turned down. I know you have to try a number of times but I don’t want it it anyways. I’ll go crazy being at home all the time. I’m already starting to crack. I am so. Fucking. Tired.”

“Can you get people to help manage things?”

“What people? There’s just me. There’s always just me.”

Judy comes and shows me a meditation app on her phone. I don’t bother telling her that I already use one and I actually like it a lot. But it’s not enough. It’s hard to believe that a few weeks ago I felt like I had an okay handle on things. 

“I’m not sure what your spiritual beliefs are,” she says, “But I’m happy to pray with you.” 

    Oh for the love of God.

    “No thanks,” I say. “But that’s very kind of you.”

    “Well I’ll pray for you regardless,” she says. I tell her I think my mother’s already praying too much for me as it is and she laughs politely. 

    No, seriously, I think. Do not fucking pray for me.

Bree pops her head in and asks if I can come in two Mondays from now for my cast fitting. I say okay, and then they all filter out except for Shelley, who tears open a package of Aquacel and a foam dressing.

“Where’s Doctor Thompson, anyways?” I suddenly ask.

“Sri Lanka,” she answers. “Lucky stiff. I can’t wait until I can travel like that but it’s hard with the kids needing things all the time. And they want a little sister really bad.” She tells me about what a disaster her house is, what with the water leak and them having to redo the kitchen. She says her oldest came home from school last week and told her about another outbreak of lice. "She has really thick hair and she throws a fit when I brush it much less try to run a comb through it." 

    How long ago was it that she told me this same exact story?

    “It never ends,” she says. 

    “You can say that again,” I say. 

    No doubt, she will. And I'll probably be here to listen to her say it. And to hear her tell the story of the kids at school getting lice year after year until both her girls are out of elementary school and in middle school, then high school, then college, then having kids of their own to be afraid of getting lice. Year after year I will keep wheeling up here as the doctors and nurses age and retire and eventually die, and then it'll be my turn, passing on without ever having managed to fix that tiny hole that held out until my unquestionably bitter end, sticking to its guns, never backing down, getting smaller and bigger and smaller and bigger but never disappearing completely, exuding various amounts of drainage, my one constant companion I can count on to never abandon me.