A little bouncy ball bounced into my bay.
‘Hi, I’m a junior head and neck doctor’

The wonderful Luisa and I had been talking about my ol hole and wondering what dressings we could use on it that might be a bit better, as my skin is getting red and irritated. I’m just using some big white squares someone gave me in A&E. Deepti said she was going to send one of her doctors over at some point to discuss dressings etc so I was waiting for that, but in the mean time, we were trying to think of a better dressing to use. Then when I mentioned the type Deepti said she was thinking of using, Luisa went and got some so I could see them, which helped me understand what route they were trying to take – to try and close it using steri strips, like they do for tracheostomies. Which is a noble idea but I think they’re underestimating the size of this thing. It’s not just a little slit to be pulled back together, it is a hole. Proper hole.
Anyway, when she went out to get the dressings to show me, in bounced the bouncy ball.

The day doc had said she’d call someone from head and neck just to see if they had anything to say. They were always fairly low level docs which is fine, but when you have the history I have, as well as the relationship I do with the head surgeons, where do you begin explaining everything to them. As bouncy balls do, it all went quite fast. He wanted to work out what was wrong, he wanted to look in my mouth, he wanted to feel my face, he wanted to know my history, then when Luisa came back he got distracted by that and he wanted to change the dressing on my face. I tried to explain that the hole was a different issue to what he was called in for – the swelling.
But he said ‘oh well we can take that dressing off and have a look’ he bounced around for quite a while on this one.
I explained that I would rather not take it off because the skin is quite sensitive and I’m trying to wait another day.
He bounced a bit more.
I explained that I’d been in touch with Deepti – did he know Deepti? Oh yes, she’s my big boss – and she was going to send someone over to talk about that, it’s a separate issue. What he’s been called in for is the swelling.
So we bounced on back to the issue at hand.
I explained to him what was going on in my mouth, in my face. I had to go through explaining my plastic plate, the swollen areas around it. No, there’s no pus in my mouth. No, there’s no collection of liquid in my face to drain.
‘It seems like you know more than I do. I don’t think I can add anything,’ he bounced.
I think once I’d invoked the name of his big boss he realised there were higher powers at play here.
So off he bounced.

Luisa had managed to drop the dressings and escape for a bit, not before she’d got stuck for a bit trying to help me explain to bouncy that it was a totally different thing we were doing. She came back after and we finished our assessment of the dressings situation: that the steri strips seemed ambitious, but ok, we understood what the idea was… I suspect once the docs come and see it, they’ll be like ‘oh ok hahahaha ok, no, that’s not gonna work’ (coz that’s how doctors sound (obvs they don’t actually)). Anyway, the dressings chat was super helpful. I’m not sure we’ll get a less irritating option that the big white square I’m already using, but I guess our minds are on it in case anything comes up, and hopefully I’ll see Deepti’s doc at some point. Maybe I’ll even get to see Mr K, wouldn’t that be a treat.

I didn’t seem to spike a temperature last night, after they gave me a random one off dose of gentamicin (another antitbiotic) so that’s something… Apparently my infection markers have just started going down today as well, so maybe maybe we’re on the home stretch, baby.