| By: Paul S. Cilwa | Viewed: 4/25/2024 Occurred: 11/1/2022 Posted: 1/24/2023 |
Page Views: 608 | |
| Topics: #Autobiography | |||
| My skin is like parchment. | |||
Possibly the first sign of again I noticed, when I was young, was when my grandmother walked along an old wooden railing and brushed her hand, ever so lightly, against the wood. The skin of her hand simply peeled away where it touched the wood.
I am now about the age she was then, and have the same problem.
It especially comes up when I'm walking the dogs, which involves my taking them, one at a time, down the stairs and around the pool. Ella is usually desperate; she doesn't seem to have figured out that we have to go East so I can get down the stairs before she can head West.
Just as my hand was adjacent to the metal railing, Ella tried to bolt to where she normally pees. Since I was holding her leash at the time, my hand wound up scraping the edge of the railing.
My skin, like that of many of us older folks, is thin and tearable as parchment. I have sleeves to protect my arms from getting scratched by the dogs, but nothing for my hands. I had to finish walking her before I could do anything about my hand.
I didn't have large enough bandages so I had to go to my daughter, Jenny's, house where she has many, many bandages (a necessity when you have a house full of little kids).
A few days afterwards, the torn skin was re-attaching itself.
Of course I had to re-bandage each day to check for infection. Luckily, these torn skin issues don't seem to cause any permanent harm.
Two weeks later, and most of the tears have healed completely. (But I got a newer, less horrifying one,)
