28 April 2013
Today I managed to hop around for about 10 minutes this morning before picking up my usual routine of laying on the sofa. To hop I had to hold my left leg up, so I sort interlocked my left knee with my left elbow or sometimes used my left leg on the kitchen bench or sofas for extra balance. I can easily sit up and not feel sick now that I’m not on the medicine Mefenamic Acid anymore. Today I have been trying to exercise my ankle and foot as much as possible. My range of movement in my ankle is probably a bit less than half what it normally is so I’ve been trying to move my foot gently back and forth to increase the movement. I don’t actually think that moving it has increased the range of movement but it has helped to move a little easier within the range.
This afternoon I noticed my ankle was really swollen. At first I wondered if it had just been swollen the whole time and I’d been so pre-occupied with the burns that I didn’t notice it, but as the swelling got hotter and redder I started to get a bit worried. I looked at the previous photos and saw that yesterday I had a visible and fairly normal looking ankle, whereas today I just have a large red blob with no indication of a bone even being in there.
I tried to search on the internet about swelling near burns and couldn’t really find any helpful information at all. The consensus seemed to be that it is probably infected, but that seems strange to me because it’s not sore. When I poke the swollen fat bit with my finger it doesn’t hurt it just feels a bit jelly like. Still, it’s red and hot so I want to be careful and take care of it.
Today was the first day that changing my dressing wasn’t too painful, it came off after soaking it in about 5 minutes so that’s definitely an improvement!
Finally today Dre has actually been resting, for the first time since we got our burns. He has slept most of the day, he didn’t get up until about 1pm and then also rested all afternoon. His ankle is also a bit swollen so we’re not sure if it’s just part of the healing or not – his is white and not at all hot although it’s a bit clammy and mine is red and hot so it’s unclear if his is just swollen because he’s been walking around for the past 4 days, or if it’s swollen for the same reason as mine.
Evening: The ankle has gotten really irritating now and I’ve had to run cold water over it to try and cool it down. I decided to ring my mum. She also thinks it’s really strange – could it be because I have been trying to move my ankle today? Could it be infected? Could it just be part of the healing process? Could it be an allergic reaction from the green burn cream? Mum says she doesn’t know that much about burns but that it doesn’t sound too good to her. Oh dear, now I’ve worried her and I only want to figure out what to do. Mum says I should get to Chiang Rai to get a proper doctor to look at it, but I reminded her I can’t walk. How can I get in and out of a minivan, and how on earth could I get in the boat to cross the Mekong? It seems like a pretty hard task for someone who for the past 5 days hasn’t stood up, let alone moved out of the house. Mum wants me to try and call Leila, the American doctor who lives in Muang Sing and get her to come and look at my ankle. Dre found something on the internet that said sometimes burns in lower limbs can cause swelling because the blood can’t flow properly so it pools in one place or something. Anyway I’m going to sleep and see how it goes in the morning.
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