Surgery update – Day 7

Well it’s been a full week since surgery (if we don’t count the day it happened). Not going to lie, things aren’t looking good at the moment and if what I’ve read is correct I have another 2 weeks of walking around with what appears to be two large cantaloupes under my skin. If that doesn’t sound like fun, well that’s because it’s not.

So much work, so much swelling. It’s not a good combination for sure. My main PI is expecting a coherent project summary for my grant proposal (which is ~15 pages) this Friday and I’m on page 6(ish) so not a lot of progress, but I’ve only been working on it for a week so that’s expected when I have to cite a ton of sources and that involves hours of reading research papers to make sure I’m citing the right thing.

If I had nothing else going on right now, I think this wouldn’t be so bad, but my main PI is also expecting me to get a set of experiments done ASAP because they are overdue (technically they are not! However, we had planned to be done and processing them at this point). So despite the recovery taking a lot longer than I expected, I need to be in the lab doing experiments. I have another one tomorrow and then three next week that need to get done.

Which brings me to the final update for the day. Yesterday I told my story about the last surgery I had where I swelled this bad. I had feared (and even warned the people in the lab) that I may about to have a repeat of that event. Lastime they used sutures so I had some warning. This time they used skin glue, so it’s sealed until it isn’t anymore. I’ve been afraid (given the incredible amount of swelling) that the cavities they created digging out scar tissue had filled yet again with blood/fluid/whatever and were about to break open in a spectacular fashion.

That unfortunately may be happening. I noticed last night that the towel I use to wrap my ice packs (to help with the swelling) had some spots on it. At first I was hesitant to think it was blood/fluid/whatever is in there this time, because I didn’t want it to be happening again. Well I swapped the towel and sure enough I am weeping from both of the incisions. Frankly with how swollen they are I’m shocked they haven’t completely split apart, but I’m still not happy that they are weeping.

It’s not a good sign for sure, they should’ve given me something to compress the area to prevent this from happening or put a temporary drain in, but it’s the VA and they only did half the surgery they were supposed to do! (Yay) I’m not sure I told that story yet… huh. I’ve been a bit out of it so you’ll have to forgive me. It’s not due to pain meds, I’m not taking any, they don’t work on me! It sucks, but I’m a little out of it because I’m barely sleeping and in a lot of pain at the moment.

Never fear, it’s a spot I’m surprisingly used to being in! Not comforting I know, but you get used to it. So I just have to give it time and hope that I don’t completely break open and have another trash can or two to fill.

Point of today? Even though the people who did the surgery were one step away from butchers who are lucky they didn’t get kicked out of medical school (I mean how else do you end up working for the VA, let’s be real you’re overworked, underpaid and even if you have a heart of gold and want to help veterans, there are better ways), I am stuck with the consequences. In short, I’m a victim of biology and trapped in this state until my body heals itself. Now, if I could just fast forward to the part where I’m better…