Mikaela was discharged from the community nursing program on Saturday, and finally given the go ahead to enter a swimming pool (which is good, cause she has swimming lessons starting today, which we were thinking we'd need to cancel).
She burnt her arm on the exhaust pipe of our car a month ago now, and has been having regular visits from the community nurses to check the burn and change the dressing ever since. At first it was every day, every other day, and then eventually down to about once every four to seven days (depending on whether I had to change it in between - if it had started to come off or gotten wet).
The nurses have been fantastic. About five days after the burn we took her to the doctor (supposedly) for a wound review, but ended up seeing the GP's nurse there instead of the GP. She has been great with Mikaela generally, but as far as changing the dressing and cleaning the wound she sucked. Kaely came out of there completely traumatised and had hysterics the next several times she had the dressing changed (which, because of the kind of dressing that nurse put on, was that night, the next night and then every couple of days after that for a while - the community nurses appeared astounded that she'd chosen that dressing for a burn).
Some of the nurses handled her hysterics and just generally managed their interaction with my shy three-year-old better than others, but all in all I have to say they were all awesome. And the fact that we paid nothing for the entire month's service, that there was never a sense that they wanted to avoid seeing her or rush through or get her off the program quickly - is just fantastic, and I think says something pretty good about our medical systems, despite it's obvious failings. They even left us dressings and bandages (the latter only for her comfort) for the next week, and told us we can call them if we have any worries.
And now, we are off to the pool!
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