THE FOURTH DAY 

The two Dr. Douglas’s came in together.  He was obviously there as a doctor.  It soon became apparent that she was there for moral support.  He pulled the curtain at Penny’s bed and stepped next to it.  “We’re going to check your stump to see if it is healing properly.  You don’t have a fever so it is unlikely that you have any infection.  That is surprising given the size of the wound you had and the exposure of the open wound to the environment, but let’s not complain about it, it’s good you don’t.”

He showed her a clasp on the side of the belt around her waist.  The cast was attached to the clasp to provide pressure to keep it on. “You release that by squeezing it like this and the cast and pylon comes off, but don’t do it yet.  We want to take the cast off, look at your stump, change the dressing if it needs it, put on some antibiotics and get the cast back on relatively quickly.  I want you to lay back as much as possible and keep your stump up if you can.  We don’t want your stump to have time to swell or we may not be able to put the cast back on.  If that happens we will have to put your stump in a shrinker and pull it up with traction.  That will cut your mobility and delay your recovery.  I don’t think I have to mention that being in traction is not really a lot of fun.”  He put on a pair of gloves as he talked.  The nurse adjusted Penny’s bed till she was laying down.

With that he nodded, “Unhook it, I want you to get used to doing this.” 

She fumbled with the clasp, then it released.  He carefully slid the pylon off her stump.  It was bandaged, there were spots on the bandage where the blood had seeped through it.”

“Is it OK, the blood spots?  Is it bleeding?”

“That is normal, there is always a little bleeding, there is a big wound there and it is rare for them to not leak a little right after surgery.  It should be stopped by now, we’ll check that when we take the bandage off.”