A wedge of lemon, warm compresses and a touch of TLC

First night on surgery call and had an 86yo lady with “frozen bowels” aka postoperative ileus. She had just had her bladder removed five days before and was having a prolonged recovery from surgery. Because her bowels were not moving which is a common condition after surgery, she developed nausea and vomiting and had to have a tube placed in her stomach to drain the vomitus out and we were keeping her “NPO” which means nothing by mouth. I noticed this morning that she had some swelling of her left cheek just above the angle of her jaw. This progressively worsened and became very painful over the course of the day to the point she was grimacing in pain and not moving her head at all due to the pain. After a quick consult with Jane, I thought she might have an infection of one of her salivary glands from lack of salivation due to not having anything by mouth. It turns out I was right and with a little massaging of her cheek, I was able to get a whole bunch of pus (and hopefully a stone) out of her mouth. The treatment is actually something my mom could have come up with: twice daily massages to get the pus and any stones out, warm compresses and wedges of lemon to stimulate the gland to secrete saliva!

Afterwards she felt better and I felt super satisfied! Where else in medicine can a little TLC, some lemon and warm compresses do THIS?? :)