healing, interrupted

I disinfected and used the round end of the probe, not the scoopy end. 

I did a naughty thing two days ago: I stuck a metal probe inside my toe wound. I had wanted to get a gauge on how deep the wound still was. Callus has inevitably built back up over and around the wound, giving the impression that the wound's opening has been shrinking, but what about the wound itself? I was curious about that, so I stuck the smooth, round end of the probe inside the wound after wiping it down with an alcohol swab and slathering it with some of that burn-care lotion I'd been given by the hospital. The tool's round end popped inside the wound as I pushed the probe past the narrow opening, and I could feel that the wound's size hadn't really changed all that much, which was disappointing but unsurprising.

Still, popping the probe in there was a bad idea because, as I saw minutes later, I had disturbed the healing going on inside the wound. Fresh fluid (blood? lymph? plasma?) began leaking out—not at a torrential rate or anything, but enough to show I had disturbed something that shouldn't have been disturbed. So I've learned my lesson, and my new Prime Directive is Don't fuck with the wound. I'll continue to monitor how much the wound seeps and weeps, and one of these days, the wound will, im-sh'al-Lah, close up.