The Cow Bite story takes a hilarious turn today….
Whether it is hilarious or not, you decide!
So I went back for dressing today, and fortunately, this time, it is under the resident doctor. Also, the swelling had already gone down a lot. And I mean, a lot! The medicines worked.
I was very sure I won’t be advised to go through “surgery” again.
So as it turned out, now, get ready for this….yesterday’s doctor MISUNDERSTOOD the orthopaedic team’s response to my wound.
MISUNDERSTOOD???
Yes, you heard me right!
I told today’s doctor what yesterday’s doctor said and he said, “He misunderstood our response.”
The orthopaedic team (by the way, bite wounds all come under orthopaedics, I just learnt today) meant to just debride the wound. Not cut off a big piece of my skin, for goodness’ sake!
So today’s doctor showed me what yesterday’s doctor SHOULD have done. He debrided the wound. Only the wound. And I did not need any local anaesthesia either.
It was just some stinging pain, which most pet parents can bear.
So, there is still some pus and he needed to clean it out, then it has to remain bandaged/covered until tomorrow. Two more days of dressing and it should be okay.
So, there you have it.
I’m so relieved I chose NOT to heed yesterday’s doctor’s advice. Sigh…nowadays, we had better be smart and use some common sense to decide if an expert’s advice makes sense to us.
Otherwise, I’ll be in so much pain having a big part of my skin cut out and it would have taken a month to heal. Goodness gracious!
Lessons learnt:
- For any pet bite, go to the doctor’s within an hour of the bite.
- We’ll probably need antibiotics and a thorough cleaning of the wound. A useful antibiotic might be Cavumox (Amoxicillin & Clavulanic Acid). An anti-inflammatory might be useful too (for example, Beazyme).
- If we only get to see a doctor much later, then perhaps debridement of the wound is necessary. Debridement, not cutting off the skin!
- Use common sense to make sense of what the doctor advises!!
P.S. FMT is coming to interview me today for our work with street animals. My husband says I have a battle scar to show!