Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Medical Update

By Britt:

Today I did school, took a break to go to Sinyola's house to change her dressings, came back for a little more school, and then all my normal dressing-changes patients came. I also got to talk with my friend Lori which is always fun; she always has the craziest medical stories - I love it. It was a busy but productive day. I just wanted to post a few pictures of Sinyola's wounds; they are looking so much better after just two days of cleaning and bandages. But since I haven't written enough to not make the medical pictures show up at the top, here is a picture of me acting like a goon:

Almost forgot to take photo
so shininess is antibiotic
cream already on face.

Right arm, looks much better!! Mesi Jezi! --->





The worst of the wounds,
(left leg)


Now for the fun part of my day! After all the correspondence and advice from some awesome ladies, Lori and Sharon, it was determined that I could remove the keloid on Roseline's ear.

Welcome to the ' O.R. '
Complete with a grill and several motion lights for all those post-sunset operations.

First I numbed up the base of the ear so that she wouldn't feel anything while I cut and stitched. This is the before, her ear is all swollen from the lidocaine but I just wanted to show how much it was hanging off of her ear.

Then I cut gradually with a scalpel, but like I said it was just barely attached. Paige can tell you, I was kind of shocked how it basically just fell off on its own. It was bleeding pretty badly, but I had been properly warned and prepared for that (thanks guys!). So Paige dabbed while I sewed and this is how it turned out.


I warned Roseline before I started working that there is a chance that it will return. She said that she still wanted it removed and understood that possibility. I can understand that, even if I knew it was going to grow back, I would still want to at least try. It was bothering her quite a bit, it was heavy and a reason to be teased. She was as tough as nails and didn't even seem to notice when we injected the lidocaine. Such the price to pay for beauty! :) Here is the happy patient, without the heavy, dangly keloid.



So this is probably going to gross you out (that is if you haven't already 'x'd' the window) but after she left, I dissected the mass. It was the same throughout, just hard tissue (yes, tissue?). I tried to take a photo but it didn't turn out. It was a cream-ish color and hard. Weird huh?



She has another smaller one on her other ear that I didn't notice
yesterday. But I know, I should have paid better attention. (remember, tet chage!) I don't think this one is ready for removal and it is more attached so I don't think I will remove it unless it continues growing. Here's a photo, tell me what you (Lori, Sharon, Jamie, Nik, Jen) think: