While I was waiting for the day of the surgery to arrive I tried not to think about it very much at all. Not because I was nervous, but because I was excited about the possibilities and I did not want to feel let down if things did not go exactly as planned. While I believed that the surgeon could close the wound surgically, he had warned me that based on the location of the wound and just by moving around that the sutures may not actually hold it.
The morning of the surgery I was cautiously optimistic. I went in and met with the surgeon to go over all of the last minute details. That entire conversation was fine, I had a very good feeling that I was where I was supposed to be, being treated by the person that was supposed to treat me so I went into the surgery with absolutely no hesitation.
Being that this was a relatively minor procedure, the surgeon and I had discussed the type of medication that I was going to be given so that I would not feel what was going on. We decided that instead of undergoing general anesthesia that I would just be given "twilight sedation." When they gave me the medication, I basically fell asleep and knew nothing until a little while later when I was roused by an uncomfortable pillow. I asked the person at my head to move it and that was done without a problem. Once that was moved I did not feel any pain, yet I was not groggy enough that I was falling back to sleep so I just laid there and let whatever was happening continue.
Eventually, I asked the person at my head how it was going and what was going on. I was told that it was almost done and that the surgeon was closing the wound, pretty much at that moment. I was really happy when I heard that news. I was wheeled into the recovery room shortly thereafter and pretty soon after that my family member was allowed in to see me. I was fine by then, I felt spectacular. I was given a sandwich and basically being that I was able to eat it without any problem, they discharged me to my home.
I was sent home, with instructions to stay off the wound, and stay in my Clinitron bed except to get up and go to the bathroom. I went straight to my bed when I got home and pretty much did not move until many hours later when I had to go to the bathroom. Getting up out of bed was no problem at all and did not really scare me but when I was getting back into bed I suddenly saw blood, it seemed like it was a lot so I called in a family member to have a look at the situation. My clothes were bloody but it was not pooling, we got in touch with the doctor and he basically said that it was not anything to be super concerned about, especially being that my visiting nurse was going to see me first thing the next morning.
The next morning, when my nurse came I explained to her all that had gone on during the surgery and about the blood situation that had happened once I got home. She then took a look at the surgical site and said that while their was a lot of blood on the clothing I had taken off the night before that the site looked very good and that it was awesome to look at me and not to see a giant hole. She covered the wound and said that she would be back a few days later to change the dressing again.
I spent those few days in my bed and not really moving at all. I was determined that if this wound wasn't going to stay closed that it would not be because of anything I had directly done or not done. When my nurse called me to schedule her next visit we discussed me getting up to take a shower immediately before her visit and we decided that based on the discharge instructions from the hospital that that would be okay. When she saw the site after my shower she said that it still looked really good but that one of the stitches was beginning to pull but she did not think that anything was wrong, She just warned me to be incredibly careful about it, let me tell you, she did not have to warn me twice. When she called a few days later about scheduling the next visit I she said that again I could take a shower right before she arrived. I asked her if she really felt it was a good idea based on the fact that the stitches were beginning to pull at her last visit. She said that it was okay, so I hesitantly got up and took a quick shower.
When she came and looked at the wound she saw that a bunch of the stitches that had been holding the wound closed that pulled and were no longer doing any good. I was supposed to see the surgeon the following day so all she did was redress the wound and made a call into the office to give him a heads up about what was going on. I was obviously not happy with this news that I was hearing but I was warned that this was a possibility, along with warning me about that possibility the surgeon also said that he was confident that even if it did not stay closed after the surgery that once the edges were removed that it would heal better than it was before.
The next day I met the surgeon at his office so that he could see what was going on with the stitches. When I was in the car on the way to his office I kept feeling some drainage, so I had a feeling that it was not going to be spectacular news. When he looked at it, sure enough the stitches were doing no good at all so he removed them and packed the wound with calcium alginate dressing. I was not really happy that I now had an even larger wound that was open. Yet I believed that it was the thick rolled edges that were preventing it from closing before and that being that those were gone that my body would start to heal it again.
The surgeon then asked me if I would really object to having the Wound VAC started up again to get it going. At that point I did not necessarily care what he said we had to do, I was going to go with his suggestions, based on the really good feeling I had gotten about him all along. I left the office and called my visiting nurse when I got home to bring her up to speed on what all had gone on and what direction we were thinking about going in. The visiting nurse was not happy that the stitches had to be removed but we all new it was a possibility so dwelling on it was not going to help anyone.
Being that this was now a Saturday afternoon the nurse wanted to get the Wound VAC orders as soon as possible so that the company could ship it to me so we could begin the therapy. She asked me for the surgeon's phone number, she called the surgeon, called the VAC company and then called me back. She explained that she had given all of the necessary information and that the VAC would probably arrive on that Wednesday so she would just dress the wound the same way the surgeon had until the VAC arrived.
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