{"id":22419,"date":"2018-06-22T11:58:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T18:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22419"},"modified":"2018-06-22T11:58:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T18:58:43","slug":"whinge-bag-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22419","title":{"rendered":"Whinge-Bag Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_5954\"<\/a>Progress report (or lack thereof): the skin graft isn’t taking. I feared that might be the case, and now the dermatologist has confirmed it. He cut off the top layer, which was scabbed over, yesterday morning. He said\u00a0we might have to try another. After he left the room I asked the nurse practitioner what would happen if we didn’t. She said I’ll eventually grow new skin and it’ll heal. I said that’s good enough for me. I don’t want to endure another skin graft, because if the first one failed there’s no reason to think a second attempt will work out any differently.<\/p>\n

So this is the face I’ll show the world, likely for the rest of the summer. My morning routine will include removing yesterday’s dressing, soaking and cleaning the wound on my nose as best I can, swabbing it with vaseline, and putting on a new dressing. I’ll have to see the nurse practitioner\u00a0weekly (as I have for the past month).<\/p>\n

A good part of\u00a0July\u00a0will\u00a0be down time anyway, because I’m having my second knee replaced on the 10th. The museum knows I won’t be in for three or four weeks afterward. My nose might as well heal while my knee does. My goal is to be recovered, nose and knee, by the end of August. I’m laying in a stock of books on the Kindle. And who knows, I might get some writing done.<\/p>\n

\"35628366_10156419504167346_7928081256967831552_n\"<\/a>Not that I’m\u00a0going into hiding, just planning on taking it easy while I care for my nose and do physical therapy with the new knee. I\u00a0went in Monday for\u00a0my volunteer shift at the air museum. With\u00a0a white nose poking out beneath dark sunglasses and a big floppy sun hat, I must have looked like the Invisible Man … but everyone was cool with it, or at least they didn’t point and laugh.<\/p>\n

Three more museum Mondays remain before knee surgery, and I plan to do them all. Tomorrow\u00a0there’s a book club meeting,\u00a0and in the evening company’s coming over. I won’t be out and about for a couple of weeks after the knee surgery,\u00a0but the nose? Pffft. People are just going to have to get used to seeing\u00a0me like this. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. It is what it is.<\/p>\n

Well, that’s enough whinging for now. Let’s talk ticks.<\/p>\n

Mr. B gets ticks constantly. Maxie never does. A mystery? Not really. Mr. B pees on\u00a0bushes, brushing up against them in the process. Maxie squats over the ground. I’m pretty sure that explains it. The nurse practitioner at the dermatologist’s office, who used to be a vet tech, told me to try a topical\u00a0ointment called Frontline. You rub it between your dog’s shoulder blades once a month. The local feed store wanted $52 for three month’s worth so I ordered it from Amazon, which sells it for $35. Chewy.com, where we get our dog food, sells it for $60, but it’s a six-month supply, so really only $30. Hoping\u00a0it helps … but we’ll continue to check Mr. B over daily, as we have been doing. And Maxie too, just in case.<\/p>\n

I mentioned friends coming over tomorrow night. It’s our cooking club<\/a>, coming out of a long coma. We’re going to prepare and\u00a0devour\u00a0entr\u00e9es from Reuben’s Restaurant, a famous (no longer in business) California institution: shrimp scampi and saut\u00e9ed artichoke hearts. Apparently these were\u00a0enormously popular menu items back in the day,\u00a0with\u00a0websites and forums<\/a> devoted to reconstructing the recipes. We’re also making a watermelon salad,\u00a0rice pilaf, and having strawberry shortcake for desert.<\/p>\n

Mr. B is by my desk in his office bed (as opposed to his bedroom\u00a0or family room bed), chasing something in his dreams. Muffled little barks, twitching paws. Donna’s out shopping for tomorrow’s dinner. Polly’s at work. A quiet day. Enjoy your quiet days … you never know how many you have left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Progress report (or lack thereof): the skin graft isn’t taking. I feared that might be the case, and now the dermatologist has confirmed it. He cut off the top layer, which was scabbed over, yesterday morning. He said\u00a0we might have to try another. After he left the room I asked the nurse practitioner what would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,40,2],"tags":[1517,2559,2557,1146,2556,2558],"class_list":["post-22419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-critters","category-personal","tag-cooking-club","tag-dog-dreams","tag-down-time","tag-knee-replacement","tag-skin-graft","tag-ticks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22419"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22425,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22419\/revisions\/22425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}