It's All an Adjustment

My family and I had a temporary moment of panic when the Wound VAC first alarmed and then we attempted to solve the problem by patching the leak. See, the wound VAC uses negative pressure to help tissue regranulate from the bottom of the woundbed, therefore, making it less deep. While it does that it is also sucking away any discharge that the wound may be producing. In order for the VAC to properly do its job it must remain sealed. When I moved from my wheelchair to the bed I moved just enough to make the VAC loose it's seal. We were able to get it sealed enough so that the alarm would stop, but it was suddenly not as quiet as it had been. I decided to just deal with it being loud for the one night, knowing that visiting nurses would be coming the following day to check on the surgical site and also to do some instruction on the VAC itself.

A visiting nurse came the following morning to get me all situated and also to re-admit me into their service. See, once I was hospitalized they no longer were involved with my care, so I had to sign all of the paper work and learn about the company again, as is protocol. After we did all of that the nurse got down to the business of showing me and a family member how to set up the wound VAC just in case it should do anything dumb when a nurse wasn't able to come out and fix it.

The VAC works by packing the wound with foam which then helps the negative pressure get to the wound. The foam first needs to be cut to the approximate size and shape of the wound. The nurse cut the foam piece that she needed and then showed it to me. While I did want to know what was going on with my body I had avoided seeing photographs of the wound and although I had heard measurements in the past I didn't really 'get' just how big the wound was until I saw the piece of foam. To the best of my recollection, the foam was about eight centimeters wide. I had no idea at the time just how big that was until I saw it. Then the nurse called in my family members so they could see what to do. Well, when my family members came in and saw the wound they immediately had to leave the room. It was too much for them to handle. That in turn scared me, because while I knew it wasn't a good situation I had never seen those family members get so upset about anything like this before.

The days that followed were very noisy and I didn't sleep very much at all. Partially due to having to get used to the noises that the wound VAC made and also because I had to adjust to sleeping on the bed my doctor recommended. The bed that I was on is called a Clinitron At-Home bed. The bed is filled with a sand-like material that always moves. So that pressure is never kept on one part of the body for too long. In order to function properly it has to be set to a specific temperature. Well, as someone that is usually hot I hated that it best functioned at a very high temperature. The first few weeks home from the hospital were quite an adjustment for me, both emotionally and physically.

The Beginning of the Journey

Let me bring you back to about this time of January 2009. In January of 2009 I was getting along relatively well with my family and was awaiting the birth of my first niece. Happily enjoying the new laptop that I had gotten for Christmas. I mention the laptop because my using it was one of the contributing factors to a medical issue that was the event forced me to trust my gut feelings more often.

As an individual with a neural tube defect I had been told since I was a young child that I would need to regularly change positions and that I should also get in the habit of checking my body for sores. I spent the weeks after Christmas sitting on my bed playing with my laptop and not changing my position nearly as much as I should have.

In mid January I realized that although I wasn't in pain, due to decreased sensation, I had developed a pressure sore. I immediately went to the doctor and was told that not only was I going to need skilled nursing care at my home that really regardless of what the doctors or nurses did that it wouldn't heal unless I took the responsibility to stay off the wound as much as possible. Now is probably a good time to mention that I am wheelchair bound and that the wound was near my coccyx. Thus, I had to switch from being relatively active to basically being stuck in a bed forced to lay on my sides and stomach.

It took about a month for my wound to completely heal. That month felt incredibly long. Being stuck at home in bed left me feeling isolated and depression kept rearing it's ugly head. I tried to stay as positive as possible and was encouraged by my nurses that the wound was closing nicely and that it would get better if I just held up my end of the bargain and stayed off of it. I did hold up my end of the deal and exactly two days before my niece was born I was given medical clearance to begin living my life again.

I was thrilled with that news especially once I got the phone call to go to the hospital to meet my new niece. As I was holding her for the first time I made a vow to myself to do all that I could to prevent myself from having to experience anything like that again. Sadly, that was not in the cards for me.