Posted by alexandra_k on August 30, 2017, at 0:13:46
So I really have come around to the idea of surgery being a last resort. What happens when everything else has failed.
The social stuff has failed and so there got to be a medical problem. And then the medical care / management / treatment failed.
So... Nothing left to be done but cut it off. Otherwise... The necrosis will slowly spread...
And it's just so freaking sad that it gets to that point.
And the thing about the will to live...
Our Dean said something sensible in the paper (which was nice to see). He said that the trouble with some communities is that... People don't want to live in those communities. And of course that's right. Doctors don't want to live there. And of course neither do most of the other people living in them. I mean, you have a few people who are in charge who are revelling at their good fortune of being in charge... But you have a whole heap of others who are powerless...
And sometimes the only power you have is the power of whether you live or you die. And that is why a bunch of people decide to die. Because they have had enough. And that's the only power they have, really.
And sometimes that's why people don't present for treatment. I've only exceptionally very rarely had clinicians say that they were going to tell me what my options were. Typically it was their way or it was the highway. So there, again, the power you have is the power to... Leave it. That's right.
The foot thing makes me mad... Because there are things you can do to help the blood flow. Massage. I don't know why it is... But if you ask someone to touch their toes they think they aren't allowed to bend their knees. But of course that's what knees are for! Get people sitting down cross-legged. Fix their dodgey hip at the same time!
We played with our feet in sand-boxes at tech. And walking (very gently does it) on pebbles. Learning to walk (very gently does it) without shoes. The little stabilisers in your back get working... The muscles around your knee...
There is something about feet... There are lots of nerves in them... Lots of muscles. 1/4 of the bodies muscles?
More than that... Something something about Jesus washing the dusty feet of travellers. Something... Humbling. Self nurturing. About caring for your own feet. Not of checking them... Like something alien... But actually... Taking those shoes off and waking them up. Getting them... Feeling again.
The daft shoe prescriptions that we have for those daft rocker shoes... Ankylosis is inevitable therefore assume the f'd up posture already...
It's almost like... People are doing everything they can to bring about gangrenous foot. Health and saftey laws that mean you aren't allowed to exercise your feet in gyms... The shoe people that purport to sell *prescription* shoes. That ACC funds for people with Diabetes etc that get them thinking rocker shoes are good for them that only serve to hasten the demise...
I feel like it is exploiting people. That the people don't get proper information about what to do to look after they feet. And *why* aka: Because a diabetic sore might become gangrenous in which case someone will have to cut the foot off.
Uh. Can I do it?
That feels weird... I'm not sure about that...
I feel like... It is one thing when a person has been broken by someone else and then you try and fix it (e.g., road trauma people)... It is something else to break them yourself - in the hope they will grow back better or stronger somehow. I mean... I have just started thinking about cancer surgeries... Fetch! And a bit more... But then gangrenous feet... It is just so sad that things get to that.
I guess more so when you consider 'options' for prosthesis...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1094747
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20160906/msgs/1094747.html