Irene is a 50-60 year old woman who lives with her spouse, Ivan, in an apartment. Both Irene and Ivan are on social assistance for chronic disabilities: Irene due to a stroke 5 years ago and Ivan due to debilitating back pain. According to her doctors, Irene has advanced HF and kidney disease, she also suffers from osteoarthritis. Irene is overweight to the point where walking causes her difficulty; she requires a mobility assistive device when she leaves the apartment. Ivan is responsible for most of Irene’s self-care, even though he is limited by his back pain. Irene and Ivan receive homecare supported through two local government organizations: one agency arranges for a house cleaner every three weeks, while another arranges a health care aid to dress Irene’s wound once per day. Irene has advanced HF, which in her scenario means that her decreased blood flow has begun to negatively impact some of her bodily tissues.
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Material effects
Irene’s HF both results from and perpetuates a physiological network of biological objects and activities. In Irene’s scenario, water retention emerges as a primary material effect of her advanced HF. Excess fluid stretches her skin due to underlying swelling. In some areas her skin has started to thin and break apart. Initially, her skin began to discolor and break down. But her body’s inadequate cardiac output prevents much-needed nutrients from reaching the afflicted area. This results in a chain of material effects Irene translates as a weeping1 leg wound:
Irene: Over the last few years [the fluid] is everywhere. When it’s really bad I feel as though I’m choking and you can actually see me getting bigger. Ivan has on occasion sat in that chair and just watched as I got bigger. And I feel as though I’m being strangled . . . The thing about the wound, if it heals over, if it stops leaking, I go into heart failure because all of the fluid backs up2.
As Irene’s body becomes increasingly over-saturated, her HF translates into more fluid; the primary material effect of her HF is this steady flow of fluid. For Irene, the wound’s flow can relieve pressure from within her over-saturated body. When Irene’s wound stops flowing, more nefarious material effects manifest themselves in her body:
Irene: The thing about the wound, if it heals over, if it stops leaking, I go into heart failure because all of the fluid backs up. And it doesn’t go.you know, the gold standard treatment for that is compression. But what happens with me in compression is it doesn’t go into the circulatory system, it goes up into, you know, around my heart and lungs . . . I can’t breathe, gasping for air.
Irene believes the material effects for leg wound are inversely proportional. On days when her wound weeps profusely, her fluid translates to physical relief; while on days when her wound
1A “weeping wound” is a wound that excretes bodily fluids such as interstitial fluid or blood.
2While ANT research encourages openness towards a diversity of research participants’ perspectives, we
believe it is important to acknowledge that Irene’s understanding and diagnosis of the function of her leg wound and its relationship to her HF is physiologically incorrect. From a cardiovascular standpoint, a chronic leg wound cannot cause heart dysfunction; but heart dysfunction can make it difficult for a chronic leg wound to heal.
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ceases weeping, her fluid translates to acute HF symptoms such as intense shortness of breath. While this process may seem impossible from a clinical standpoint, this is her material reality of her HF.
Network effects
Fluid moves outward from Irene’s body into a variety of network effects that impact her and Ivan’s lives. These effects lead to fluid being translated in sometimes unexpected ways that complicate patient self-care. The constant flow of fluid from Irene’s wound requires that the fluid be contained, translating into the network effect of wound dressing. Ivan and the health care aid perform the dressing, sometimes several times a day:
Ivan:One of the health care aides come in once a day and changes the dressings on her leg . . . We just hope that it never stops weeping. That’s, you know, sort of like a Catch-22. It’s like, I have to change the dressing sometimes 4 or 5 times a day because the drainage is so heavy, but if the drainage stops, she’s in heart failure.
Wound dressing is a network effect of Irene’s fluid overload, requiring materials such as gauze, tape and scissors. Irene explains that along with these materials, the bandaging activities have been translated into a “protocol” by Ivan for the nurses:
Irene: Ivan is very experienced with dressing the wound. He has it down to an exact system. How to undress, clean and bandage the wound properly; which bandages to use and such. Actually he has written out the protocol for the aides and they follow it.
As the wound weeps, the gauze sops it up, stopping the flow from trickling from Irene’s body into her clothes or the furniture. Held fast with tape, according to Ivan’s protocol, the gauze absorbs fluid like a sponge. In relation to the interstitial fluid, wound dressing is a material effect. The dressing has no recourse for the fluid; it simply is a new storage space. Yet recall that the dressing’s gauze has a maximum fluid capacity. Left unattended, the gauze translates to
4.3. RESULTS 65 dirty, saturated dressings. Gauze must be changed, and not only is a stock of materials required but a protocol of activities must be followed. The material effect of the wound now translates to a number of network effects including purchase, retrieval and storage of wound management materials.
An ANT lens shows how self-care recommendations for Irene starkly illustrate the tension between self-care as a matter of fact and a matter of concern. We see fluid literally moving through Irene’s wound into network effects like wet bandages, bed pads, trips to the pharmacy, visits from homecare support staff, or new equipment. Bandaging may not impact the physiology of fluid, but it does require dedicated amounts of time, materials and knowledge that must be routinized and arranged:
Irene: This is a pattern, this is now my life, having to have these bandages changed a few times everyday and sleep with a pad to absorb the overflow at night and, I don’t know what’s going to happen when Ivan’s back condition worsens because the community health care organization simply will not fund the amount of nursing that I require . . . I have had wanted to, had been advised that swimming would be good for me as a low impact exercise and I can’t because of the wound. So that is an issue.
Irene’s weeping wound requires constant activity throughout each day. For Irene and Ivan, bandages, bed pads, tape and gauze are mediators, actors that play a direct role in the translation of fluid. The wound substantially limits Irene and Ivan’s capacity and resources for effective self-care, including HF self-care, wound care and exercise. However, the self-care recommendations Irene reports to her team are matters of fact; she needs to find ways to improve her self-care or the fluid will increase and her heart function will decrease. Irene reports that she has been advised to exercise more—some care providers have recommended she take up swimming. Yet this ‘matter of fact’ advice fails to recognize the agency of fluid as an actor in Irene and Ivan’s patient-caregiver network. Swimming as self-care is a matter of concern for Irene: she cannot swim while she has a weeping wound.
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