The nurse came over on Saturday to do the first installation. It took about three hours. At the surface of my skin there's a little more than two square inches that's open on the left side, and a little more than a square inch on the right, but under the skin the openings on each side are five or six times bigger. The way she measured it was by sticking a q-tip in and measuring how far it was until she met resistance. Then she cut the foam to size, pushed it into the cavity, and sealed it off. Now I have a tube coming out of each side of my chest, then they are taped together on my stomach and meet with a y connector. I have about six feet of play between me and the machine, so I set it on the floor to sleep and I have enough room to turn over. Otherwise I carry it around with me or wear it around my waist.
The suction is less comfortable than the gauze was, but overall this is more comfortable than the gauze stuffing and then wrapping myself up in an ace wrap to keep it all together that we were doing. It's also nice to be dry - the gauze would soak through and my skin was getting really chafed from being constantly damp and rubbing on the ace wrap.
We did the first dressing change yesterday. This time three nurses came - the one from Saturday, a wound expert, and a trainee. It's supposed to be really painful so I took two percocets about an hour before they got here. It was painful. This time it only took about an hour and then I slept for the rest of the afternoon.
The good news is that although I still need them for the dressing changes a couple days a week, I've been able to get to sleep without taking pain meds for three nights now.
They come back tomorrow for dressing change number two, and we should know if there's more progress. Thursday we go meet with the plastic surgeon to talk about reconstruction again.
It was supposed to happen yesterday. I cannot imagine trying to go through with it feeling like I do. I'm glad it was postponed.
The suction is less comfortable than the gauze was, but overall this is more comfortable than the gauze stuffing and then wrapping myself up in an ace wrap to keep it all together that we were doing. It's also nice to be dry - the gauze would soak through and my skin was getting really chafed from being constantly damp and rubbing on the ace wrap.
We did the first dressing change yesterday. This time three nurses came - the one from Saturday, a wound expert, and a trainee. It's supposed to be really painful so I took two percocets about an hour before they got here. It was painful. This time it only took about an hour and then I slept for the rest of the afternoon.
The good news is that although I still need them for the dressing changes a couple days a week, I've been able to get to sleep without taking pain meds for three nights now.
They come back tomorrow for dressing change number two, and we should know if there's more progress. Thursday we go meet with the plastic surgeon to talk about reconstruction again.
It was supposed to happen yesterday. I cannot imagine trying to go through with it feeling like I do. I'm glad it was postponed.
So, I was curious; why the push for reconstruction? Is it so everything can be done at once? As much as you're hurting, is it something you could put off for a year or two?
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to give unwarranted advice, I was just curious. :)
Mostly I want to be done with it all, close this chapter, and move on with my life. Keep that "year from hell" contained down to a year. That's definitely not happening now, but I think we're going to try to get it done this fall if my body is healthy enough.
Delete