Give it a rest

I'm back to battling my body. I have/had been having drainage issues relating to my original surgery and the perineal wound. I began keeping a health journal to record all things surrounding the episodes of drainage. It culminated in a weekend of extreme pain - to the point I didn't even want to walk - and a surgeon ordered MRI. The MRI showed a large pocket of fluid sitting in my pelvis where my anus used to be extending up above my pelvic floor muscles.

My surgeon fit me in the surgery schedule for the day after the results came back and I scrambled to get everything arranged in order to spend at least 2 days in the hospital. Things can never go easy for me and even with the assistance of anesthesia I ended up being poked 6 times trying to get an IV started, eventually ending up with a pediatric anesthesiologist who started a line with the teensiest tiniest gauge needle - just to get me in the OR and asleep. Once I was under they started a larger gauge IV in another location.

What we have here is L-R and top-bottom poke sites on left arm (he went in the AC 3 times there), using the ultrasound on the right AC, the aftermath of sticking the right AC and the pediatric IV in a place I absolutely HATE.

Everything went well and I came out with two IVs and a wound vac to aid in healing. She decided to keep me overnight to control my pain better - and honestly I think to keep a closer eye on me since I don't have the best track record when it comes to post-op complications.

Other random pictures from that 36 hours:

Same ordering - presents waiting for me in the holding area, modeling my new friend the wound vac, HUGE socks and getting the good stuff in IV #2.

At posting I am almost 1 week post-op and healing well. The wound is down to 3.5cm deep and I am pretty sure she told me when I came out of surgery it was a good 5-6cm deep - making progress! Still sporting the wound vac and probably will be for at least another week plus some days. Whatever it takes to make this thing heal correctly this time, I'll do it. I want to get back to doing the things I want to do without limitations.

My body really HATES surgery and has decided to SHOW me how much it hates it. I've got a mouth full of ulcers (stress) and my skin is broken out in a hot mess around my stoma (stress). This is what I look like right now...when I change my ostomy appliance I TRY to let my skin take a break (sometimes I don't have the time for all that!). On this day I had the time and figured I would do a GOOD job of taking a break and coated my skin with zinc oxide - the same thing you might put on your nose to prevent sunburn. You can see the tubing from my wound vac running across me and there is a little tiny dark spot up and to the right of my stoma (the rosey looking dot) - THAT people is my belly button. Or, what is left of it :)