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[NOTE: I finally realized: If I wait till I have time to spell out the entire history of my leg (nerve damage from 2002 accident) and my jpouch (fake guts), this blog will never happen! So instead, here's what I would have written today even if I had been keeping up better.]
I called Nurse Mary at Normatec this afternoon. She said it's okay to pump for my remaining 15 minutes today as long as I'm pretty sure that the one seeping end of the incision is not infected. She suggested that I put some gauze over the incision while pumping, to absorb whatever is leaking out. We both took succor from the fact that Dr. Upton will be seeing it in less than 24 hours. (If you would like to see photos of my leg, including two from yesterday, click here.)
When I met with Dr. Laura Jacobs (inventor of the Pneumatic Compression Device) on July 23, she was certain that Upton will take out the sutures tomorrow, based on seeing my incision and knowing that it will have been five weeks since my surgery.
So now I'm worrying that a) digging the sutures out of the way-healed skin at one end of the incision is going to hurt; and b) removing them from the seeping end is going to lead to a new gaping hole in my leg, like what happened during summer of 2003. A repeat of that experience is still the thing I most fear in life. (Someday soon I hope to stop rehearsing this worry.)
Well, I'll just have to trust him to know what the right thing to do is.
Speaking of sutures, I'm currently wondering: Can he remove some stitches but not others? Or are they all connected, like a basted hem? And what's up with that one suture on the back of my calf, where there was never any injury to begin with? It can't be connected to the others, can it? That would be so gross. I hope to get answers to these and other mysteries at tomorrow's appointment.
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So you didn't seem to have any gaping holes in your leg yesterday, but then again it might have been hidden. Did all go well on Tuesday?
ReplyDeleteHe took out the stitches on that Tuesday as planned. When you saw me on Wednesday I had several layers of bandages on, plus a skirt, so you wouldn't have seen it anyway. There is, in fact, still a gaping hole, but it's much smaller than the one in 2003. I remain guardedly optimistic. More posts on this to come.
ReplyDeleteAnd some stitches dissolve. I think I got non dissolving stitches a year ago April, but they were not all removed -- or maybe the doc thought he'd used the dissolving kind. ANyway they were in there for over a year (sometimes I thought I'd see this black line under my skin.....) Then one day I thought I had a pimple in a funny place, or maybe a scab. I picked it. It didn't hurt, which was strange. Then I pulled..... and this whole wiry strand came out!
ReplyDeleteHmm, I guess that was a little on the gross side..... but somehow I get the feeling you can take it. :-D