Michael's Owee Finger

The last few days have been difficult for Michael. The hospice doctor had visited last Sunday and promised to return at the end of the week to treat Michael's infected finger. As the week wore on, Michael was experiencing more pain from the infection, and we had to start using the Oxycodone once again really early this morning to manage his pain. Even at the lowest dosage, that really dopes him up and so he slept all day long, only waking to eat a little food now and then.

I think the pain from his finger permeated his dreams, because he would frequently call me into his bedroom in the middle of the night during the week to discuss when the doctor was coming. He even asked me in one of those middle-of-the-night conversations to make sure that the good doctor didn't amputate it. Oh, my...

The doctor finally arrived early this evening and quickly treated Michael's finger. His approach was much different than the way the urological surgeon had treated it back in December. At that time, the surgeon had lanced the side of the finger and did not do anything with the fingernail. The hospice doctor said the infection was basically an infected hangnail (which is what Michael has said it feels like for months now), and so he cut off part of the nail and some of the dead skin around it. All we have to do is change the dressing and apply Neosporin once a day for the next three days. After that, the doctor wants it to be exposed to the air. Michael will also take a course of antibiotics. I think he will be needing the Oxycodone through the night tonight, but I hope he'll start taking less of it during the day tomorrow and transition to Tylenol instead.

I told him this evening while I was feeding him dinner that I had been missing him while he slept all day. He opened his groggy eyes and gave me direct eye contact as he said, "I'll be back soon." Too cute.

Thankfully that has been his only pain so far. So, now that that's behind him, I hope that he'll have better days in the week to come.